Shocked!
by apocope
Summary: Virgil has it pretty good. Good friends, a loving family, and teachers who support him. That all flies out the window when he gets tangled up in the world of vigilantism. Now it's up to his quick thinking and some help from his friends (and enemies) to save the city. AU where the characters are smarter and actions have consequences.
1. The Big Bang

**Preface**

Hello and welcome to _Shocked!,_ my take on the DCAU's show Static Shock, where, like it says in the blurb, everyone is a little bit smarter. I've taken a couple liberties with powers and motivations and added a few OCs where necessary to make everything cohesive, but for the most part the story follows the same trajectory as the show... at least at first. Hopefully you don't have to have seen the show to understand what's going on.

Warnings: Some violence and a little swearing ahead (mainly in later chapters) and not a small amount of hand-wavy, techno-babble science (smarter characters means Apocope spends way too much time on wikipedia/youtube). There will not however be much in the way of romance, because who has time for that when you're fighting supervillains? Also, most of the characters are, like, fourteen, and kids hooking up is not what I want to write.

On formatting: Every chapter starts out with a mini-scene that's either a plot point or some tangent only partially related to the story. The rest of the chapter is divided into numbered scenes with their own titles, which were originally just to help me keep organized, but I kinda like them, so they stayed.

Lastly, I don't own any of the main characters or the setting. Those are the property of the DC Animated Universe.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **1\. The Big Bang**

Clouds of gas boil up from some unseen source. The sounds of fighting turn into terrified screams while sirens blare nearby and helicopters drone overhead. Everything is acrid, poisonous, deadly.

 **1.1 Francis and Wade**

Francis shoved me again, harder this time.

"What do you think you're doing, punk?" He grabbed my shirt, threatening to tear it. My heart hammered. I hadn't thought this through, and now I was gonna get a beating.

Half blocked by Francis's arm, I could see the freshman kid he'd been picking on. He still clutched the inhaler in his hand, the one Francis had tried to steal.

I looked up at Francis, daring him to do it. If someone had to get beat up, it was better me than that other kid.

"That was a private exchange," Francis said, his voice low and menacing. He grabbed my shirt with two hands and lifted me up off the ground.

Dang, he was strong. I grabbed his wrists, trying to make him let go.

"You were robbing that kid," I said, the words choked and breathy.

For an answer, Francis leaned forward, slammed me against the brick wall of the school. I coughed, the impact forcing the air out of my lungs. I tried to kick him, make drop me, but I didn't have the leverage to do him any real harm. Just make him mad. He let go with one hand and drew it back like it was a Roman catapult ready to smash through a Phoenician fortress. I braced my head against the bricks. He was gonna hit me and then let me go, his point proven.

The punch came, right in my cheekbone. I saw stars for a second, but they faded just in time for me to see the catapult load up again.

"F-Stop!" a familiar voice shouted. I almost cried in relief. It was Wade, an upperclassman even bigger and tougher than Francis, with a couple of his buddies in tow. "Let him go!"

Francis looked at the three black kids, still holding me up, his catapult of an arm still loaded. His eyes were wide and I could practically see the gears in his head spinning as he tried to figure out what to do next.

He dropped me and ran. Wade's two buddies chased after him while Wade himself gave me a hand up off the ground.

"You okay, V-man?"

I touched my cheekbone, where my eye was already half swollen shut. "Yeah. You didn't have to, Wade. He was gonna let me go."

Wade grinned. "And let one of my boys take a beating?" He tousled my hair, like he was being friendly, but it felt more demeaning. I didn't like people touching my dreads.

I knew Wade from the rec center. He played hoops there sometimes and would let me join in if his team was ever short a player. Other than that, nada. He was a big, tough upperclassman, too cool for the likes of me.

"Couldn'ta come two minutes sooner then?" I asked like I was joking, but really I was wondering why he'd gone out of his way to save me but not the inhaler kid. He'd been sitting on his picnic bench the entire time, just on the other side of the grass. He must've seen the whole thing.

Wade laughed.

I laughed too, but it was forced, fake. "Thanks, though," I said, trying to let him know I wasn't insulting him in any way, and made some excuse about getting an ice pack from the school nurse so I could get away from the scene.

"See ya 'round." Wade bumped my fist and I fished my backpack out of the bushes where I'd dumped it so I could face Francis.

####

Derek and Lamar found Francis in the cafeteria and sat down at the table behind him, talking loudly about the things Wade had told them to talk about.

"Say, man, you gonna go with that Hawkins kid to the rec center after school today?" Derek asked. "I know he goes there every day."

"Nah, not today. I told my girl I'd take her to the movies. You?" Lamar said.

"No, I got a meeting with my probation officer."

"That's too bad. I guess Hawkins is gonna have to walk all the way there by himself."

After a few minutes, Francis got up and left, and Wade came and sat next to Derek and Lamar.

"He get the message?"

Derek and Lamar glanced at the empty chair behind them.

Lamar spoke. "Think so."

 **1.2 Richie**

I told the nurse I'd been playing baseball and not paying attention and she gave me a plastic blister full of frozen blue stuff wrapped in brown paper towels. The cold hurt, but felt good at the same time.

I glanced behind me, just to make sure Francis hadn't followed me, and let myself into the underclassman computer lab. Richie was already there, working on his game, his lunch half forgotten on the desk next to him.

A couple months back, Richie had made a deal with Mr Decker, the technology teacher, to let him hang out in the computer lab during lunch. In exchange, Richie promised to keep his grades up and not try to mess with the school's administration programs. It was a pretty sweet deal, because after Richie had proved that he wasn't gonna do anything stupid or nefarious, Mr Decker let us both hang out in here, pretty much unsupervised.

We didn't always eat lunch there, but sometimes it was nice to get away from the overcrowded cafeteria, especially if Francis was around.

"Hey, Richie."

"Heya, V," Richie said, not looking up or slowing down his typing. I sat down next to him and got my own lunch out of my backpack.

I let him type, not wanting him to see my shiner yet. He would chew me out the minute he learned what I'd done.

Richie and me had been best friends for years now, despite the fact that I was black and he was white as wonder bread. We'd been in the same class for gifted kids in elementary school, something that had put us both on the bullying hit list. That and our shared love for computers and comic books had kinda made us automatic friends. We'd survived middle school and managed to keep our heads down freshmen year enough that we'd kinda faded into the background. Not nerds, not dweebs begging to be picked on, just, nobodies.

"Jump?" I asked. This was the game Richie had been building for a while now. It featured a superhero called Jump, who had to run and jump over obstacles to get to a bomb and then carry it out of harm's way before it exploded.

"Yep," Richie said, pausing to push his glasses up his nose. "I'm trying to fix that bug where he gets stuck inside the truck when he lands on it." He saved his work and picked up his PB&J, the same thing he had for lunch every day. He nearly dropped it when he saw the ice pack I'd got from the nurse.

"What happened?" he asked, frowning.

"It's nothing." I touched a finger to the bruise under the pack, to see if the swelling had gone down, debating whether I should tell Richie the same lie I'd told the nurse or let him know what had happened with Wade.

"That's not nothing."

He would get mad at me if I lied and he found out, so I told him the story.

"You realize that was really dumb, right?" He shook his head, like he still couldn't believe it. "That dude has got major anger management issues. You're just lucky Wade showed up."

"Yeah, I guess. I just couldn't stand the thought of him picking on that kid, you know?"

Richie put a hand on my shoulder. "I hear ya. Next time just make sure you got Wade with you before you try and tangle with F-Stop."

I snorted. "F'd-Up, more like."

"Haha, yeah. Who came up with that nickname, anyway? His photography teacher?"

About a half hour later the warning bell rang. Richie saved the work he'd done on his game and made double sure the door to the computer lab was locked before we walked to history class together.

"Shoot some hoops after school?" I asked.

"Nah, man. I got stuff I need to do at home," Richie said, looking down at his shoes and pushing his glasses up his nose.

I told him that was fine and didn't bug him about it. He didn't like talking about his folks.

 **1.3 Alleyway Altercation**

I returned the melted ice pack to the nurse after school and started walking towards the rec center. I could've taken the bus, but Dakota city busses always had weird people on them and it wasn't that far from the school to the center.

My pops worked at the center as part administrator, part organizer and part dad to everyone. He was always doing everything he could to make the center a place for people to go when they needed a safe place, no matter their age or color or circumstance. They had daycare for single parents, GED study courses, self-defense classes, reading rooms and foosball tables and basketball courts open the public. Even a pool and a gym, though you had to pay to use those.

After Mom died, Pops had really thrown himself into the center, as a way to keep himself busy, I guess, and he'd turned what had once been a run-down gym into something people could point to and say, "See? Dakota's really not doing so bad after all." Even if he was busy all the time, I was still proud of him.

I walked along, wondering if it'd be worth it to have Pops sign me up for a weekend self-defense class, or maybe talk him into hiring a karate instructor who could teach classes after school. A good flying mantis kick would probably make bullies think twice before trying to mess with Virgil Hawkins.

Distracted by the daydream, I bumped into a guy waiting at the corner for the light to change. A tall white guy with ginger hair. His pants hung low on his hips, almost falling off, and his t-shirt was stretched tight across muscles that screamed of a well used gym membership. It was Francis Stone, the last person in the world I wanted to see right now.

"You." Francis turned and glared at me.

I took a step back, and Francis grinned like a sadistic lion seeing its prey alone and ill-equipped to handle the situation.

"Not so brave now that your little posse's not here to keep you safe, huh, hero?" he said, somehow making hero mean the same thing as idiot.

"I..."

Francis grabbed my collar and dragged me into an alleyway before my brain had time to send the message to my feet that they should start running. A bag of trash sat next to an overflowing can and Francis threw me into it. It was soft and soggy. I gagged. I wasn't hurt, but I was gonna have to burn this shirt later.

"It's time you learned a lesson," Francis said. "And since you didn't wanna do it the easy way, I guess we're-" Francis cut himself off, looking back at the street.

Three shadows blocked the entrance to the alley. One tall and broad, and two shorter but equally menacing on either side. Wade and his cronies.

Francis took on a fighter's stance, balanced on the balls of his feet, fists up, and faced the shadows. "You. Why're you getting up in my business all of a sudden?"

Wade took a step forward, out of the sunlight so we could see his face. "'Cause you been messing with my man Virgil," he said, looking at me.

Francis kept his eyes on Wade and I slowly got to my feet, trying not to make any noise. The alley wasn't a dead end—connected to the next street over. Maybe if Wade and Francis kept up this staring contest long enough, I could get away, unnoticed.

"This little punk? Really?" Francis asked. "You want _him_?"

"You dissing my home boy?" Wade said.

Francis tensed, his pale green eyes flicking between me, crouching next to the trash, and Wade's team, blocking the closest exit. That seemed to be all the cue Wade needed and he nodded at the shadow beside him. He had a ski mask on, but I figured it had to be Lamar, judging from the cornrows that stuck out under the bottom of his mask. Lamar reached behind him and pulled a stick like a police baton out from under his shirt. Lamar's buddy Derek did the same on Wade's other side and Francis decided in that moment to run.

Derek and Lamar rushed past me while Wade looked on, still blocking the way out. Francis grunted and swore and tried to fight back, but he was unarmed and after a couple good hits he went down and wrapped his arms around his head.

Whump, whump.

Derek and Lamar smashed their sticks down on the defeated white kid five or six more times before Wade called them off. I felt sick to my stomach, only in small part because of the garbage juice.

"Help him up."

Lamar switched his stick to his left hand and grabbed Francis by the elbow, yanking him to his feet.

Wade sauntered over, leaning in towards Francis's face. "You're gonna leave my man Virgil alone. Got it, F-Stop?"

Francis wiped his nose and swore under his breath.

"What?"

Francis stood up straighter. "I said I got it!"

Wade nodded. "Get outta here."

Francis backed up a couple steps, nearly tripped on a garbage can lid, then turned and ran down the other end of the alley.

With a look, Wade sent Derek and Lamar to stand guard at either end of the alley. Not for the first time that day, my heart pounded in my chest. Richie had been right. That one act of heroism had been a really stupid idea.

"You lemme know if he bugs you again, a'right, V-man?"

My voice caught in my throat for a sec and all I could do was nod.

"I done you a big favor today, and I expect you to pay me back."

I swallowed. "Yeah, of course," I said, trying to figure out how in the world I might be able to help Wade. Maybe he needed tutoring in math class? Tutoring from someone who had a reason to keep it a secret or do it pro-bono? That had to be it, and I felt my shoulders relax.

Wade smiled. "Good. I'd shake on it, but..." He wrinkled his nose.

I pulled at my shirt, nearly gagging myself.

"I'll see you 'round, V-man," Wade said. He left, Derek and Lamar following after him.

Once they were gone I took one more whiff of my shirt and peeled it off. I thought about throwing it into the trash right here, but it was one of my favorite shirts, an over-long yellow button-up with orange sleeves. My white t-shirt underneath had soaked through too, but the button-up had taken the brunt of the damage.

I balled up the shirt and reorganized my backpack so the stanky thing couldn't contaminate my books, put on my jacket and walked to the nearest bus stop, more than ready to go home and forget all of this.

 **1.4 Laundry**

Lucky for me, my sister Sharon wasn't home when I got there. She had a crazy schedule between all her classes and work and everything, so it was always a mystery as to whether or not I'd have to deal with her when I got home.

I threw my button-up, t-shirt and jeans right into the washer, tossed a few kitchen rags in on top to fill it up and started the machine. That taken care of, I got a soda out of the fridge for my eye and went up to my room.

Sharon and Pops harassed me all the time about my room, about how it was a "mess." They just didn't understand my method of chaotic organization. Everything had its pile. There was a pile for clothes, a pile for books and comics, one for dirty dishes and several for different kinds of miscellaneous stuff. As long as _I_ knew where everything was, what did it matter how it looked to other people?

I threw on some clothes that passed the sniff test and lay back on my bed to enjoy some grape soda, comic books and much-deserved peace and quiet.

The phone rang a couple minutes later. I groaned and answered it. It was just a telemarketing robot and I hung up again. But the ringing did remind me that I should call Pops, tell him that he didn't need to give me a ride home when he was done working.

I dialed the number from memory and after a couple rings Pops picked up.

"Hey, Pops."

"Virgil. What's up?" He sounded stressed.

"Nothing. I took the bus home, that's all," I said, glad he couldn't see my guilty face.

"Okay. Thanks for letting me know."

"Yeah, you got it. Oh. Hey, Pops?"

"Yes?"

I took a deep breath. "Just wanted to let you know I got in a fight today at school."

There was a furious silence on the other end of the line, then an explosion. "You what!?"

"Yeah, me and this baseball, we got in an argument over velocity and momentum, and-"

Pops groaned. "That's not funny, son."

I laughed. "Yeah, sorry."

"I'll see you tonight."

"Okay, see ya." I hung up and went back up to my room. I'd pinned a poster of the solar system to the ceiling above my bed, and I stared at it now, thinking about what I should do if I ran into Francis again at school tomorrow. Ignore him, I guessed.

Really, I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about him. Francis was a bully and deserved to get a taste of his own medicine, but the way Wade had done it was beyond unfair. They'd trapped him, beat him up with sticks while he was unarmed, two against one. It had been scary.

 **1.5 Speculations**

"Jeez, Virg. That's a shiner." Richie sat next to me at homeroom while we waited for the first bell to ring and the school announcements to be read over the intercom. Other fancier high schools had TV screens in all their classes and live broadcasted their announcements every day, but not Lakeside High. It wasn't the dumps, but it wasn't the greatest school either.

"It's that bad?" It'd looked way worse yesterday, I thought.

"Mm-hmm. What'd your dad say?"

"That maybe baseball's not my sport," I said with a laugh. I knew Richie well enough to know he'd understand what I meant.

"Sticking with the other B-ball," Richie said. "Good choice." He glanced around, but it didn't look like anyone was eavesdropping on us. "I heard you were gonna play ball with Wade. What's up with that?" he asked. He had to mean the incident at lunch yesterday. I hadn't told him what had happened in the alleyway yet.

"Nothing." I opened up my backpack and pulled out my algebra textbook. "I just owe him a favor is all." I glanced at the table of girls next to us, who were chatting in loud voices. "I'll tell you 'bout it at lunch."

Richie didn't get the chance to ask anything more, as the bell rang and the homeroom teacher called for order. The announcements came on and I buried myself in my algebra homework due tomorrow.

Homeroom ended soon enough, and I didn't see Richie again until lunch. Just to be safe, I went the back way through the building, to avoid going outside and walking past Wade's picnic bench. Mr Decker let us into the computer lab and took a quick look at Richie's "independent project" before retreating to the teachers' lounge.

"So, Wade?" Richie asked around a mouthful of PB&J.

I sighed. "You're not gonna like it," I said, and explained the whole thing. Bumping into Francis, getting soaked in garbage juice, Wade's "rescue" with the armed goons and me agreeing to pay him back when he asked.

Richie rubbed his the back of his head. "Dang, man. That's an awfully big, bad coincidence."

"What're you saying?"

Richie shrugged. "I dunno. You just _happen_ to bump into Francis, and then Wade just _happens_ to show up with two dudes in ski masks with police batons?"

"You think Wade organized all that?" I asked, wondering how he could've done it. He'da had to trick Francis without even talking to him, since Francis wouldn'ta given him the time of day after what Wade had pulled in the school yard.

"Maybe. I'm just saying it's a weird coincidence. What'd he ask you to do?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. I figure maybe he needs help with, like, algebra or something, but doesn't want anyone to know, or doesn't want to pay for a tutor."

Richie grimaced.

"You don't think so."

"If Wade's got bad grades, it's not 'cause he's stupid." He paused, played with his earring like he was nervous. "You ever seen that green hat he wears?"

"Yeah..." I could picture it. Light green baseball cap with a dark green letter "K" stitched above the brim. The symbol of the Kryptonite gang. Something twisted in my gut. "Lots of people wear those hats."

"People with friends in ski masks with police batons?"

I leaned back in my chair, slapped my hand to my forehead. How could I have not noticed it before? Wade was gonna want something a little more than help with math homework.

"What do I do, Rich?"

"I dunno, man. Tell your dad?"

I shook my head. I couldn't do that. First off, it'd kill him to know I'd got mixed up in gang stuff after what had happened with Mom. And second, he'd pull me out of Lakeside and send me to Vanmoor, that awful new private school in the white part of town. He'd threatened to do it before, for way less serious reasons. If he did that, I'd hardly ever get to hang with Richie or shoot hoops at the center after school.

"That's just what they tell you to do in all those dumb PSAs," I said. "'Sides. If he asks me to do something illegal I can just tell him no. I owe him a favor is all, it's not like I joined the 'Nites."

"I guess," Richie said, but he didn't sound like he believed me. It was fair, I guess. If it'd been him in my place I would've felt the same. "But you know I always got your back, right?"

I looked down my nose at him. Growing up, he'd always been a short, skinny kid. He wasn't so short now, but he was still skinny. Not exactly a fighter. In the past, I might have teased him for saying something like that, but I was more mature now, and knew that he meant it, no matter what. You don't tease a bro when he's being sincere.

"Yeah, I know, man."

He held out his fist and I bumped it, a little surprised to find myself feeling way better.

 **1.6 The Favor**

That next week Wade stopped me in the hall before sixth period, green hat on his head. My heart started pounding, but I tried to play it cool.

"V-man."

"Hey, Double-U-man," I said, cringing on the inside. This was not playing it cool.

Wade ignored my lameness. "Remember that favor?"

Like I could forget. "Yeah, I remember."

"Good." Wade glanced down the hall and handed me what looked like a wadded up gym shirt. Was this the favor? Doing his laundry?

To my surprise there was something hard, something heavy wrapped inside the shirt. L-shaped. All of a sudden I felt cold.

"Put it in your bag."

When I didn't move, Wade took back the wadded up shirt, spun me around and unzipped my backpack.

"I need you to hold onto this for me. Just till tomorrow night, got it?" The bag zipped closed and Wade spun me again.

"Wade—"

Wade leaned over, putting his face in mine. "You owe me a favor. I saved your butt twice, and all I'm asking is one little favor. Are you saying you're too stupid to hold onto this and gimme it back tomorrow?"

"I—"

"You check out library books, don't you? You're a real bookworm, I know. Same deal. Hold onto it, give it back later."

Saying that I couldn't right then seemed like a bad idea. The image of Derek and Lamar beating on Francis with sticks went through my mind.

Wade didn't wait for me to answer, taking my silence as a yes. "Good. Pier Fourteen, nine o'clock. We're having a St. Paddy's day party."

I watched him go, horror settling in my stomach. I hitched my backpack higher and went to class, knowing I wouldn't be able to pay attention.

 **1.7 The Plan**

Me and Richie sat on a park bench, my weighted backpack between us.

"You checked for serial numbers?" Richie asked.

"Yeah. Nothing."

He messed with his glasses, pushing them up, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "You realize this is a bad, bad idea, right?"

"What's gonna happen if I don't?" I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. "That beating he gave Francis? That had to be like a warning. Like a, 'look what I can do, I'm so tough.'"

"A demonstration of power, yeah. But, V, he can't do nothing if he's locked up. You take this to the cops and..." He made a little 'poof' gesture with his fingers, like the police could make him disappear.

"Like they're gonna listen to someone like me," I said.

Richie cringed. He didn't like me playing the race card any more than I liked having it in my hand, but we couldn't ignore that it was there.

"'Sides," I added, "There's still my pops. I can't let him know about this. I just can't." If his disappointment didn't kill me, my own shame would. "I go to the police and he's _gonna_ find out."

Richie fixed his glasses. "Right. But we gotta take some precautions. Did Wade tell you to come alone?"

I almost jumped to my feet in protest. "You're _not_ coming with me, Rich. This isn't your deal." It took a lot to keep from shouting. The last thing in the world I wanted was for Richie to put himself in harm's way for no good reason.

Richie held up his hands. "Jeez, man. I know better than that. I'm not going to this party if I'm not invited. I'm just saying that I wanna be able to know if something bad goes down so that if it does, I _can_ call the cops."

"What, you want me to wear a wire or something?" It didn't seem like a half-bad idea, now that I thought of it, and recording this meeting would give some real, concrete proof I could give to the police without getting turned away out of hand.

Richie snorted. "I can't magic up spy gear like that. I might be good at computers, but I'm not that good."

"Then what?"

"Just like a check in. I'll walk with you part way and then wait by a payphone near the pier. If you don't meet up with me or call the payphone by say, midnight, I'll know something bad went down and I can call the cops."

I thought about it. "That's not a bad idea. We'd need to find a payphone though. But what about your folks? And do you think you'd be safe just waiting around out there?"

Richie shrugged. "I'll be fine. But what about _your_ dad?"

I hadn't thought about him yet. "Say we're each going to each others' houses, I guess," I said, picking up my backpack. "Let's find a payphone."

 **1.8 Pier Fourteen**

Me and Richie walked towards the waterfront. We were in Dakota's industrial zone, where warehouses lined the streets and big trucks came and went at all hours of the day and night. There wasn't much in the way here of homes or businesses or green spaces. It was all stark and barren, washed in shades of black and orange under the streetlights.

The lakefront ran north-south, and the streets ran parallel to it, the aves perpendicular. Richie stationed himself on the ave that lead to pier fifteen, four blocks away from the street closest to the lake. A couple of seedy looking bars had lights on at the far end of the block, and the rest of the street was home to cheap Chinese restaurants and dollar stores with bars over the windows. It was a step up from warehouses, but not a huge step.

Richie gave me one last bump for good luck and I left him on the corner, trying to hide in the shadows with his heavy dark coat. I had on my own winter coat, in part because of the dark colors and deep pockets, and in part because it really was cold out. I hadn't really owned anything in Kryptonite colors, so I'd spray painted a pair of my old gym shoes. They were half a size too small, but at least I was conforming to Wade's dress code.

Lamar was waiting for me by the big number fourteen that hung on the fence at the pier's entrance. Someone had cut a hole in the fence and Lamar pulled the chain links apart enough for me to squeeze through.

"C'mon," he said, and led me down the length of the dock.

The pier was so huge and solid I wouldn't have guessed we were standing over the lake if I hadn't known better. Another warehouse loomed above us.

I stumbled a little and focused on my feet, wondering where the security was.

Lamar took a left and led me around to the far side of some little out-building, maybe a couple football fields away from the warehouse. Wade was back there, standing huge and menacing, but overshadowed somehow by another, older man.

He was round-faced and missing a couple teeth, but that didn't do anything to make him less intimidating. Something about the way he held himself, the way the rest of the group seemed to revolve around him, like planets circling a star. He had gravitas.

"Hey, Quinn." One of his compatriots tapped him on the shoulder, nodded at Lamar and me.

"This is your fifth, Wade?" Quinn said, looking at me rather than Wade. I could see now, that Wade had four other Lakeside kids with him. Derek and Lamar and two more I didn't know. _Oh, God._ This Quinn guy had told Wade to do some recruiting. He'd fallen short of his goal and tricked me into coming along. Because I was a stupid underclassman who didn't have enough sense to stay away.

Now I was really and truly in it. If I tried to back out right now, it wouldn't be like what Francis had done to me, or even like what Wade had done to Francis. I'd be dead. Wade might be dead. And no matter how much I hated him now, I didn't want Wade to get killed on my account.

Quinn tilted his head. "He's kinda scrawny."

I had to play along. One month of theater camp three years ago had not prepared me for this. "I'm fast," I said and ripped the pistol out of my pocket, praying this was what Wade had meant for me to do.

Quinn laughed. "A'right kid. Calm down." He glanced at my shoes. "Nice kicks."

I moved over to stand by Wade, my brain running faster than the Flash. The scared part of me said to run now, ditch the gun in the lake and just get out before things got any hairier. The angry part of me said to start pounding on Wade, that it didn't matter that he weighed two of me and was surrounded by legit gang members. But the smart part of me said to stay quiet and wait until I could slip away into the shadows unnoticed. I hunched my shoulders and tried to look small in my puffy coat.

Quinn stood under a greenish florescent light shining down from the roof of the out-building. It seemed like the whole world, even the rush of the waves and the buzzing of the light, went quiet when he opened his mouth.

"The Kids are hitting this warehouse tonight. We figure they found something heavy in there and we gotta keep it from falling into the wrong hands. We'll put it in our hands if we can, but better no one's than the Kids' or the cops'," Quinn said, the S's whistling through the gaps in his teeth. It took me a second to figure out who he meant by the Kids. The Fuhrer's Children. A white supremacy group with branches all over the country.

Maybe I'd read too many comic books that week, but my brain played out a scene for me where I pulled a Batman, infiltrating the Kryptonites and using them to get close to a giant mecha hidden inside the warehouse. Batman-me then took control of the mecha and proceeded to wipe the floor with both the 'Nites and the Kids before flying the robot to where it belonged in the Justice League's HQ. Though I guess it was more likely there were guns in the warehouse than giant robots.

I struggled to pay attention as Quinn described their—our—plan of attack. The Kids were gonna cross over from Pier Thirteen, break into the warehouse and load the goods into a boat down on the lower dock. But before they could do that, the Kryptonite cells were gonna hit the Kids on guard duty and in the boat five minutes after the first of their guys broke into the warehouse. If their break in crew didn't come out with the goods, the 'Nites would send in their best guys to flush out the the Kids and take the goods for themselves. If they had the Kids' boat by then, they'd take that, if not, there were trucks waiting outside the pier for pick up.

I swallowed, thinking of Richie by the payphone and the trucks we'd seen circling the block.

We waited in silence for five minutes, ten, half an hour. I resisted the urge to look at my watch as much as possible, but couldn't help it. The midnight deadline was getting closer.

Finally, Quinn's cell phone rang once and went quiet. That was the signal. Quinn motioned for us to go and I followed Wade as we trotted across the dock. I lagged behind as much as I could. Between the buildings I could see dark figures in the distance, glowing orange under the industrial lights.

Then the figures caught sight of us. Someone shouted and the next thing I knew the air was filled with gunshots. An alarm went off inside the building, adding a nauseating shriek to the din. I flinched and looked behind me. Now was the time to run, get out of here.

But Quinn was right behind me, cold, dull steel aiming more or less my way. He had a crazed grin on his gap-toothed face and looked more than ready to shoot somebody, no matter how flimsy the reason.

We closed in on the warehouse and I realized there were way more guys here than Quinn had said there'd be.

"Down!" Quinn shouted and Wade pulled me to the ground with the rest of his crew. Something hot and bright shone through my closed eyelids and screams erupted from the gangsters who had been running towards us. I looked up and saw smoke pouring out of busted warehouse windows. The gangsters up ahead looked like they'd been in an accident in a lightsaber factory, half crisped and half chopped to pieces. I almost threw up then and there. What was in that warehouse?

Quinn was running ahead, shooting almost at random and I decided now was the time to go. I hadn't been lying when I'd told Quinn I was fast. I found my feet and sprinted back the way we'd come. The only other way off the pier was to jump in the water, and there were a hundred fighting gangsters between me and the edge. No thanks.

Another flash flared again and I tripped, blinded for a split second. Somewhere behind me something exploded. My ears rang from the explosion, painfully loud.

A third explosion followed, bigger than the others. The shock wave felt like someone had dropped a king-size mattress on me from a second story window. I coughed, unable to see, hear, think.

Fortunately my brain is smarter than me sometimes, and it told my hands to push me up, ordered my legs to stand and my feet to start shuffling away from the chaos. There were lights and noises and awful acrid smells all around, but it was too much for me to try and figure out what they all meant. I stumbled along as best as I could, then started walking, then full out running.

Just in time I remembered the gun, grabbed it and hurled it back towards the fighting, hoping against hope it couldn't be traced back to me.


	2. Aftermath

**2 Aftermath**

The phone rings in the gaunt man's study. This is strange, because the hour is late and he's not expecting any calls. His number is unlisted and the few employees who do have his contact info know better than to call him in anything short of an emergency.

He picks up the phone. It's an emergency.

 **2.1 Waiting**

Richie sat in the doorway of a dollar store closed for the night, wondering if this was what it was like to be homeless. Probably not, he figured. Homeless people had shelters, or churches, or at least sleeping bags and cardboard mats so they didn't have to sit on the cold cement.

Some bar patrons had passed by, but no one had noticed him there yet. People were pretty well trained not to notice the homeless, or dark shapes in dark corners. He pulled his dark gray beanie down further over his blond hair. Too bad he didn't have a ski mask, then he'd be practically invisible. Or extremely suspicious.

He glanced at his watch, using the little LED light he'd borrowed from his mom's keychain to see its battered face. Quarter to ten. A little more than two more hours before he could call the cops. What was Virgil doing that took almost a whole hour to get done? Wasn't he just going to drop off the gun and come back? Something wasn't right.

A siren sounded in the distance, high-pitched and wailing, not a police siren or a fire truck. More like an air raid siren from an old World War Two flick.

Richie stood up, not that he'd be able to see anything happening on the pier from his spot by the payphone. He squinted at the sky, pushing up his glasses even though they hadn't slid down. Was that smoke? Under the blare of the siren there was a distinct cracking sound, like fireworks almost. But Richie lived in a not-so-nice neighborhood in Dakota and he knew the difference between fireworks and gunshots.

His hands went to his head and he started pacing. Should he stay, or should he go look for Virgil? Would it be a good idea to call the cops now?

He moved closer to the payphone, debating with himself. What if he called and they came here and dragged him home? He wouldn't know if Virgil was going to be safe or not. He wouldn't be there to report Virgil as missing if he didn't show up, and wouldn't be there to make sure his friend got home okay if he did show up.

The air raid siren was joined by the more common sound of police sirens, growing higher in pitch as they got closer.

Richie felt a wave of relief, which was immediately destroyed when the boom of an explosion blotted out all other sounds. A second explosion followed immediately after, even bigger than the first.

"Screw this." He ripped his beanie off his head and ran towards the explosion. He and Virgil had decided earlier on the best route for Virgil to take between the payphone and Pier Fourteen and Richie followed this path now.

He was within sight of the Pier Fourteen fence when the helicopters roared overhead. Searchlights cut through the sky and illuminated the ground below in crazy patterns. One of the lights swept over the fence just in time for Richie to catch a glimpse of a figure climbing right over the barbed wire. The stark illumination showed bright green shoes and short dreads that stood straight up on end.

The light moved away and Virgil dropped to the ground. A moment later he got to his feet again and started half running, half stumbling towards Richie.

Other people were climbing the fence now too, and blue and red lights flared as the cops rolled in, brakes squealing.

Richie ran forward and grabbed Virgil by the arm, dragging him away before they were both caught. Virgil panted and coughed behind him but Richie kept running, trying to get them both as far from the cops and the explosions as he could.

"Rich!" Virgil coughed after a couple blocks. "I can't."

Richie slowed to a walk and let go of his friend's arm. "You okay?" He was a little out of breath himself.

Virgil shook his head, dreads flailing like seaweed underwater. "Breathed some smoke, I think." He looked at his palms. "Am I bleeding?"

Richie looked. There was something dark and wet on Virgil's hands. "Does it hurt?"

Virgil coughed again. "Everything hurts."

Richie cringed. "You need to go to the hospital?"

"No."

They walked along, as fast as they could, while Richie thought about what to do next. Their original plan had been for Virgil to call home, let his dad know that some distant family member of Richie's had come over unexpectedly, and they needed the extra bed. And since Virgil didn't have a sleeping bag or anything, it'd be best if just went back to his house.

But they were far from the payphone now—not that they couldn't find another—and Virgil was in bad shape. He would need to get the smoke out of his lungs and get his hands bandaged up before anything else. Would his dad notice the bandages?

What they needed was a safe place to lay low for a couple hours without parental interference, where Virgil could wait while Richie got some first aid stuff. Fortunately, Richie knew just the place.

The abandoned gas station had been condemned about five years ago, not long after the '96 riots. The whole neighborhood was in such bad shape that no one had ever bothered to tear it down and rebuild it. Anything even remotely of value had been looted long ago, and the store part of the building was empty except for the cashier's counter and a couple of plastic shelves knocked to the floor.

Richie led the way inside, and between the streetlight outside and his tiny LED flashlight, he found the door to the back room and let them in.

The back room was way more furnished than the front. Back in middle school, before the rec center had opened at its new, accessible location, this had been Richie's hiding hole for when he didn't have anywhere to go after school and didn't want to go home. Most of the stuff he'd either pilfered from a poorly guarded junkyard not too far away, or bought at garage sales with the odd jobs money he got from his neighbors.

A pair of tatty lawn chairs faced each other, and there was a garbage bag of old tablecloths (two bucks for the whole bag!) he could drape over them to make them more comfortable. Two milk crates and a piece of plywood made a table, and a third milk crate overflowed with sci-fi paperbacks and partially finished crossword books.

The more valuable stuff he'd hidden in the corner, underneath a big piece of corrugated aluminum and other garbage.

"Hold on," he told Virgil, and got out the duffle he'd hidden in the corner. It had bottled water, a flashlight, some batteries, a bag of Fisherman's Friend chemical hand warmers and a few other things that weren't important right now. He turned on the flashlight and went to see what Virgil had done to his hands.

"Yo, Rich," Virgil said, looking at the setup with a confused face. "What is this?"

"An abandoned gas station. You know how kids in the 'burbs have tree forts? Well, I have a gas fort."

When Virgil didn't make the obvious, 'P.U., I wondered what stinks' joke, Richie knew that his friend wasn't doing so hot.

"C'mon." He led Virgil to the old employee bathroom. The plumbing didn't work and the mirror had been broken before Richie had ever got there, but it was the drain in the sink he wanted. He unscrewed the water bottle and poured the water over Virgil's cuts.

"What happened?" Richie asked.

"I dunno. Probably got scraped when I tripped." Virgil winced and picked some pieces of asphalt out of his hand. The cuts didn't look too deep though, just messy.

"I'm gonna run home and get some bandaids," Richie said once Virgil's cuts were clean. "You stay here, okay?"

Virgil frowned. "Can't we both just go to your house?"

Richie shook his head, kinda surprised that Virgil would suggest that. Never, in all their years as friends had Richie invited him over, and Virgil had always seemed to understand that the Foley house wasn't a cool place to hang out.

"My parents, man," Richie said, then paused to think about it. Virgil probably wouldn't have asked if he wasn't scared and tired and hurt. He needed his friend right now. Richie's parents never noticed him coming and going, so would they really notice if Virgil snuck in too? Only if they were right there and saw the two of them come in the door.

"Let's try it."

 **2.2 Sleepover**

I was kinda surprised that Richie agreed for us both to go to his house. He'd never invited me before, and I'd always kind of assumed he lived in a trailer or something and was embarrassed about it.

It wasn't as nice as my house, for sure, but it was a house. A one-story bungalow. There were lights on in the front room, so Richie led the way around to the back door. I waited on the back step while Richie made sure the coast was clear.

After a couple seconds he waved me in and we tiptoed through the kitchen and to Richie's room. A TV blared at the other end of the hall, so we probably didn't need to be so careful, but Richie put a finger to his lips after showing me to his room and crept away again.

I found the light switch and turned it on. Richie's room was cleaner than mine, though that might have been because he didn't have as much stuff. A boxspring and mattress sat on the floor, and there was a beanbag chair wedged in the corner between a dresser and the baseboard heater. He had more paperbacks stacked on top of the dresser, and the walls were almost totally covered with pictures cut from magazines. Outer space, superheroes, pictures of nature...

Richie came back with a bottle of iodine and some bandaids. Under the bright overhead light I picked out the last of the asphalt, smeared on some iodine and stuck a couple big bandaids over the mess. The cuts weren't that bad, and didn't hurt half as much as my lungs did. Getting away from the smoke had been good though, and by this point I was breathing almost normal again.

With some pretty forceful whispers, Richie ordered me to sleep in his bed while he took the beanbag. "I'm not the one who almost got blown up," he whispered, and I gave in. He set his alarm for some crazy early hour in the morning, before his parents would be up, and lent me a pajama shirt that didn't smell like smoke.

I lay down, exhausted. It was hard to believe it wasn't even eleven o'clock yet. Richie got the light and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

 **2.3 B** **reakfast**

The alarm beeped, and for a second I thought it was another siren, but then I opened my eyes and saw Richie grope for the clock and unplug it. He reached again for his glasses, but didn't find them right away. I spotted them, halfway between the beanbag and the bed and handed them over.

"You feeling okay?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

To my surprise, I did feel okay. The scrapes on my palms still hurt, but only if I poked them, and the last of the smoke was out of my lungs. "Yeah. You?"

"Yep."

He rubbed some gunk out of his eye and snuck out of the room to use the bathroom. I got out of bed and put on my own shirt again, the smoky burnt plastic smell mostly gone by now. I took a peek between the blinds and saw a high chainlink fence and a sliver of pale blue sky. The sun was up, but just barely.

Richie came back and got dressed. He grabbed a box of cereal for breakfast as the two of us headed out the door. The rec center wouldn't be open for another couple hours, so we caught the bus to the park and ate cereal out of the box while we walked slowly around the circuit, getting passed by early morning joggers and grown ups walking their dogs before work.

Being careful not to let anything slip when someone else might hear, I told Richie about what exactly had gone down at the pier. Wade's trick, the fight and the explosions.

Richie swore when I ended my story with me climbing over the fence and meeting up with him again.

"Man. I am glad you got outta there when you did. Any longer, and..."

I grabbed another handful of cereal. "Nah, man. If you hadn'ta come met me by the gate, the police would'a caught me for sure." I offered him my fist. He bumped it and shook out his hand like he'd been stung by the power of brohood.

"What do you think happened with Wade?" Richie asked.

I popped sticky sweet cornflakes in my mouth and waited for a white girl in a pink sports bra to pass us again.

"I dunno. He either got hurt or killed or captured by the police. Or he got away. I guess we'll have to wait till school on Monday and see if he's there or not." I kinda hoped he'd gotten caught by the police. That's what he deserved.

Richie offered me the last of the cornflakes and tossed the empty box into the trash. The sun was all the way out now, and we sat on a bench to soak up some rays. Well, I soaked them up. Richie reflected them.

"So, about that gas station," I said after a little bit.

Richie made a face. "That?" He shrugged. "You know me and my folks don't get along. I needed a place to get out of the house and be by myself, so I kinda made one."

"And you never told me?" It was kinda cool, now that I thought about it. With a little money and some work, it could be like a secret clubhouse. Get a battery powered stereo, some real chairs, maybe some board games... We'd be kinda limited with no plumbing and no power, but it was still a pretty cool idea.

"It's embarrassing," Richie said, looking at the ground.

"Nah, man! It's way cool," I said, and explained how we could turn it into a clubhouse. He loosened up after that and started really getting into it, going on about garage sales and camping equipment.

We ran out of ideas eventually and I grabbed Richie's wrist to look at his watch and see how long until the center opened, since mine had stopped working sometime last night. Richie yelped and shook out his hand again.

"Jeez. What is up with you today and giving me shocks?"

 **2.4 News**

The rec center was almost deserted when Richie and I got there. The girl at the reception desk didn't know us, so we flashed her our cards and she let us into the gym. I snagged a towel, fresh out of the gym's industrial sized dryer, and took a shower, glad to get the last of the burnt plastic smell out of my hair. Without Pops to yell at me for wasting water, I stayed in there long enough to make my fingers go all wrinkly. All that water melted the glue on the bandaids, but the cuts were almost healed so I threw them away.

Still squeezing water out of my dreads, I went to look for Richie, who must have finished his shower ages ago. I found him in the big activity room, watching the news on the TV in the corner on the other side of the foosball tables.

"The pier?" I asked.

Richie nodded, making room for me on the couch. "So that warehouse? They're saying it was a chemical storage facility."

"Really?" I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees and watched Shelly Sandoval, the channel three on-site reporter, talk about what had happened. She stood in front of Pier Fourteen, wearing a white surgical mask. The scene cut to another reporter, who was interviewing a doctor outside the hospital.

"What can you tell us about the incident last night?" the reporter asked. He was a young, clean-cut white guy who looked like he got his teeth whitened at least as often as he got his hair cut. The glare on his smile almost ruined the rest of the shot.

"Incident? It was a Goddamn fiasco!" the doctor shouted at the camera.

Richie and I shared a smile, glad we'd caught the uncensored live version and not the edited one that would air on the evening news.

The doctor looked at someone outside the shot and faced the camera again, practically ignoring the reporter. "I don't know where the chemicals came from or what _exactly_ they are, but I do understand that some of them were highly volatile, very toxic and potentially lethal."

Richie and I looked at each other in horror. I'd breathed in some smoke from the explosion, but my lungs were fine now, right?

"Do—" I started to ask, but Richie shushed me and pointed at the screen.

"Yes, they should go to the Goddamn hospital!" the doctor was shouting. "I'll foot all the bills myself if I have to." He took a step closer to the camera. "No matter the symptoms, no matter how minor. Not that I know what they'll be."

It sounded to me like he _did_ know what the symptoms would be. I got up. I couldn't watch any more.

Richie turned, watching me. "V, we gotta go."

"No way." I paced back and forth behind the couch, feeling jumped up like I'd drank ten cups of coffee. "I do that and the doc's gonna have to call my pops, 'cause I'm just a kid. The whole thing was on the news, so he's gonna _know_ it was a gang thing, and I can't let him know. It goes against everything he's worked for, everything he's taught me. Even before my mom..."

Richie shut off the TV and hopped over the back of the couch. "I know, man. I wouldn't wanna disappoint him like that either. But promise me, if you start coughing up blood or something, you'll go."

"Yeah, man. I promise." I paced for a couple seconds. I still felt jumped up, like I needed to burn some energy. "B-ball?"

 **2.5 Discovery**

Sharon was home, studying at the kitchen table when I got there that afternoon. Richie and me had killed a couple hours on the court and hung around the center for a while, but I was still kinda on edge.

"Heya, baby bro. Have fun at your slumber party?"

I made a grumbling noise on the way to the fridge, not wanting to stoop to her level. Even though she was technically an adult and going to _college_ , she still found it necessary to bug me whenever she could.

"Aww, big boy's too grown up for slumber parties, isn't he?"

"At least I didn't have to eat your cooking!" I said, trying to needle her back. Richie and I had gotten burgers at Burger Fool before the fiasco at the docks.

"Ooh, low blow," she said, and groaned like she'd been shot. I ignored her and got out the peanut butter.

"Say," she said as I made a PBBH sandwich. Peanut butter banana honey. The best. "You haven't heard from Adam or seen him around, have you?" Her voice was serious now.

"Why would I've heard from him? He's _your_ boyfriend." I licked some honey off the knife.

"I dunno," she said. I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "I just thought you might'a seen him at the center or something. We were supposed to meet up earlier, but he never showed."

I shrugged and put the peanut butter back in the fridge. "Nope, haven't seen him."

She humphed and went back to her studying. I leaned over her shoulder, seeing how close I could get before she noticed as part of my younger brother duties to annoy her.

"Virgil!" she shrieked and shoved me away. "Ow!" She glared at me. "What'd you do, rub balloons on your head all day?" She put her finger in her mouth.

"Shocked you!" I jeered like I'd done it on purpose and ran up to my room.

"Idiot!" Sharon shouted with sisterly love.

I closed the door behind me and put the plate on the bedside table. That was the third time today at least I'd shocked somebody. What was up with that? Was that a symptom? I looked at my hands, which were still pretty well scabbed over, and shook my head. How could electric shocks be a symptom of something? A symptom of sleeping with a wool blanket maybe. Or a thunder storm on its way? Still, it was kinda weird.

I rubbed my hands together and touched the corner of my metal desk. Nothing. A little tingle maybe, but that was probably just my imagination, or just the jitters I'd been feeling all day. I dug an old Green Lantern comic out of the pile and sat back on my bed, trying to enjoy it.

But I couldn't. I'd spent most of the day deliberately not thinking about what I was gonna say to Pops when I saw him. Comic books weren't as distracting as sports, and I couldn't help but wonder, would Pops ask me about the thing at the pier, just to see if I'd seen the news? If he did, what should I tell him?

I picked up my sandwich again and went back downstairs.

"Hey, Sharon. You mind if I turn on the TV? Something happened down by the docks last night, and I wanna see if there's anything new on the news."

"Oh, that's true," Sharon said from the kitchen and her chair squeaked against the linoleum. "Put it on." She certainly wasn't a procrastinator.

I made room for her on the couch and she sat down next to me, taking the remote out of my hand. She turned on the TV and flipped to channel three. Shelly Sandoval was on again, in front of the hospital this time. Her hair and makeup weren't as perfect as they had been on the seven AM news.

"Thanks, Dan," Shelly said, "and thanks to the Dakota Police Department for keeping us updated on the situation. I'm here at the North Dakota Hospital, where six of the fifteen officers admitted earlier today still remain under observation. As Dan said, all of the officers on the scene were equipped with pepper spray protection masks and should be safe from any side effects caused by the gas.

"Hospital staff inform me that they have begun seeing other patients come in who were present at the site of the explosions, but they are unable to release more information about those patients at this time. The hospital does however beg anyone who may have come into contact with the gas to admit themselves to the hospital as soon as possible. Back to you, Dan."

The image shifted, to show the anchor sitting at the desk in the station.

"Thanks, Shelly." He looked at the camera. "As you may have heard, the cause of these explosions and subsequent gas leak have been linked to gang activity-"

The phone rang and Sharon and I both jumped. She hit the mute button and ran to pick up the phone.

"Adam!" she shrieked. "Babe, where are you? Are you okay? I was just watching the news and-"

Adam must have started talking on the other end, because Sharon went quiet, except for the occasional "uh-huh." I picked up the remote and turned the sound back on.

"Virgil!" Sharon hissed and took the phone into the kitchen. I tuned the sound down to the minimum and moved closer to the TV so I could hear it over Sharon's babbling.

There was something wrong with the picture though. It was going all fuzzy, which was lame, because Pops had just bought a new TV last year. I tapped the side of the TV box, but it only got worse, turning into a snowstorm for a split second. I hit it again, and again the snowstorm.

My heart hammered in my chest as I placed one hand on top of the TV. Snow. Static. Slowly I backed away and the picture cleared up again. _Oh, no._ The shocks, the jittery, shaky feeling, and now this?

I turned off the TV and ran upstairs. I had to test this. Not on my computer, I didn't want it to get damaged. The lamp. I went to turn it on, but the bulb flickered before I ever turned the switch. I wouldn't admit it to anyone later, but I started giggling. I unscrewed the bulb and spun it around in my fingers so I was touching the metal part. The wire inside gave off a steady glow.

 _Brighter,_ I thought. _Brighter, brighter..._ The light grew and grew, and then there was a little pop as the filament burnt out.

I dropped the bulb.

"Okay. It's okay," I told myself, struggling to keep from shouting out and getting Sharon's attention. "Just a little static electricity."

But I knew, just intuitively _knew_ it was more than that, much more. I held my pointer fingers close together, about half an inch apart. "Focus, V." That jumped up feeling I'd been getting of and on all day was coming on strong now, like my whole body was buzzing, vibrating. I focused on that feeling, trying to push it out of my chest and into my fingertips. A wave moved through me, like nothing else I'd ever felt before and a glowing white thread spanned the gap between my fingers. It was hot, but not painful. Buzzing, alive almost.

And then I lost focus and the flickering arc went out. I had to call Richie.

"Sharon!" I flung open the door and ran down the stairs, almost slipping and falling at the bottom. "Sharon, I need the phone!"

"Virgil! Be quiet! Sorry, Adam, what?"

I ran and tried to take the phone from her, but her defense was top notch, for a girl.

"Yeah, yeah. I can be there in ten minutes." She ended the call and threw the phone at me. "Take it!" she shouted and stormed out.

I dialed Richie's number and after four rings his mom answered.

"Is Richie there? It's Virgil. A friend from school."

"Hold on," Mrs Foley said, sounding tired. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, that jittery feeling building again.

In my ear, the phone crackled to life. "Virgil?" It was Richie, sounding worried even through the static. "What's up?"

"Some stuff. I can't tell you over the phone."

"Kkksh, kk, for sure," Richie's voice said.

"Meet me at the junkyard!" I shouted.

Something that sounded kind of like junkyard buzzed over the line and I told him again to meet me there, just in case he hadn't heard the first time. I hung up the phone, hoping this wasn't going to get any worse. What if I was never able to use a phone again? Or worse, never watch TV?

For all those worries, I was still excited, electrified, you could say, by that little white spark between my fingers.

 **2.5.1 In the Dark**

A man sat on the edge of the platform in the darkened subway tunnel. The Dakota subway system had been product of the city's boom in the 80's, but that boom had bust and the subway system had never been completed. One or two lines still ran between downtown and the marina and downtown and the mall, but the vast majority were abandoned, unfinished.

The man sat in the dark, but somehow, he could still see. He was one with the dark, not entirely sure where his body ended and the darkness began. He looked at his hands resting in his lap. They were solid, and yet insubstantial. The whole world felt insubstantial, flat. Even his body felt flat. But he knew in his heart there was another dimension beyond the regular three bound by the singular dimension of time. He felt like a drawing in a comic book who knew it was possible to stand up off the page, he just didn't know how.

He smiled. Whenever he learned that something _could_ be done, it was never difficult for him to go out and _do_ it.

 **2.6 Junkyard**

I ran all the way to the junkyard near Richie's house. Fortunately I was wearing the kind of clothes you might see runners wearing, so no one gave me a second glance. It's funny, how running for the sake of running is okay. It's fine if you're wearing all the right clothes and fancy shoes and little monitors to tell you how fast your heart is beating and how far you've run. But if you want to run for the sake of getting somewhere fast, then you're a weirdo.

It's all about appearances, I guess.

Richie was already in the yard when I got there, loitering in the hallway between the stacks of cars near the hole in the chain link fence. He didn't look happy.

"What happened?" he asked before I even ducked through the hole in the fence.

"On the news," I said, out of breath from my run. "Said there was a gas leak. The doctor said it was toxic, but I think he's trying to cover it up. I think it's more like the Flash."

Richie's eyes went wide. He knew the rumors. Of all the active superheroes, the Flash was supposedly the only real _homo sapiens_ with actual superpowers that he'd managed to fabricate for himself. He hadn't had his powers granted to him by aliens like the Green Lantern, and he wasn't just a smart, well-connected, but ultimately normal martial artist like Batman. The Flash was a scientist who had cooked up some Jekyll and Hyde potion in his lab and after that decided to ditch the whole scientist thing and become a full-time superhero. Or so the conspiracy magazines would have you believe.

"You're kidding," Richie said, and then smirked. "If that was true, how come you're out of breath?" He pushed his glasses further up his nose.

"I'm not saying I _am_ the Flash, I'm saying I think there was something in the gas leak _kinda like_ whatever it was that gave him his powers."

Richie's smirk turned into worry. "Virg, are you sure? Maybe there was something in that gas that makes you cr- makes you think crazy thoughts."

"I'll prove it!" I marched over to the nearest stack of cars and focused on that jittery buzz inside my chest. It had died down during the run, but it was still there, waiting. The first car I checked was a dud, but the second had one headlight in tact. I popped the hood and unplugged the bulb it from its socket inside the headlight housing.

I held the greasy bulb between two fingers and brandished it at Richie. The light flickered at first and I focused on pouring more into it, waking up that buzz inside me and forcing it down my arm and into my fingers.

"Holy cow."

I kept feeding it until the light popped, burnt out.

"Dang, man! There's no way. No way!" Richie shouted, clapping his hands to his head in disbelief. He went on like this for a good five minutes. His smile eventually faded though. "Virg..."

I knew what he was gonna say though. I'd been thinking about it on my run over. "I'm not going to the hospital. Think about it. A bunch of gang bangers gets sprayed with Flash gas, and what're you gonna get? Way more electric supervillians than the police can handle. The best way to deal with them is to round them up before they realize what's going on. Scare them into going to the hospital, knock them out and lock them up."

Richie looked like he was gonna argue, but the grin crept back onto his face. He was as overwhelmed with the cool as I was.

"Yeah, okay. Yeah, that makes sense! You're gonna keep this secret right?"

"'Course." I didn't want to get lumped in with a bunch of gangsters just 'cause we all had the same superpower.

"Good." Richie glanced around the junkyard, making sure we were alone. "What else can you do?"

I made a C shape with my thumb and pointer finger and willed the little arc into existence again. It lasted longer this time, but after it was out, the buzz in my chest was a whole lot quieter.

"Tazer-u finger-u," Richie said, like it was an anime attack name, brandishing his own thumb and pointer finger. "We could call you Taze."

"More like Static. Could you hear a thing I said over the phone?" I said. Richie had only seen the cool parts so far, not the drawbacks.

"Not really," Richie admitted.

"The TV got all screwy too."

"Oh, no." Richie groaned in sympathy. "No more Star Trek?"

"Maybe. I dunno if this is just gonna keep getting stronger, or if I'll be able to control it more..." I trailed off, thinking of all the ways this could turn from something cool into something terrible. I'd been giving shocks to people all day. What if it got to the point where if I ever touched anyone they'd pass out or die? What if I started disrupting more than just TVs and threw a wrench in the whole city's power grid? What if all the power got to be too much for my body and I just up and exploded one day? Little bits of Virgil, all over the place.

"Then, you know what we need to do?" Richie asked.

"What?"

He pushed his glasses further up his nose. "Science."

 **2.7 Research**

We found out pretty quickly that wherever I was pulling the electricity from, it wasn't an unlimited supply. Richie scavenged half a dozen lightbulbs from the junkyard, but I only managed to blow out a couple more before the buzz in my chest dwindled down to nothing.

"You don't think it's totally gone, do you?" I asked as we ducked through the hole in the fence.

"I'd guess not. But if it is, at least you're way less likely to spontaneously combust, right?"

"Right."

We walked for a block or so before Richie had to turn one way and I had to turn the other.

"So you'll see if your dad has any of that stuff?" Richie asked. He'd come up with a list of things that might react one way or another to jolts of electricity.

"Yeah, I'll see what he has."

"So, meet at the gas station, I guess?"

It was better than anywhere else I could think of in terms of privacy, so we agreed on a time and bumped fists, no shocks this time.

I spent the rest of the day going through the junk drawer and all the other places in the house where random things tended to collect. Pops came home around dinner time and we made mac and cheese together while he told me about what he'd heard about the incident at Pier Fourteen. Apparently they were calling it the "Big Bang" now. I pretended like I didn't know much about it and let Pops explain the media's version of events.

"Sharon didn't say anything to you, did she?" Pops asked as we sat down to eat.

"What do you mean? About the Big Bang?"

"No, I mean in general," Pops said. "I haven't seen her all day, and her books were still on the table when I got home."

"Oh. I think she went somewhere with Adam."

"I see." He sounded stern.

I wasn't sure if Pops like Adam or not. Adam had gotten in trouble with the law in the past, but he seemed to be playing it straight now, which was exactly what Pops was all about. But prejudices die hard, I guess, and he couldn't quite bring himself to trust Adam, I think. Either that or because the big oaf had made the stupid decision of asking Sharon out on a date. Dads are kinda required to dislike their daughters' boyfriends, right?

Not too long after, Sharon and Adam showed up, but they didn't talk with either of us and ran straight to her room. Pops just shook his head.

I helped Pops with the dishes and excused myself to my room to pick up that Green Lantern story I'd almost started reading earlier. It was a pretty good one, with plenty of fights and not too much dialogue.

The next morning I woke up to find my room trying to smother me. My blankets stuck to me like velcro and anything with the least bit of metal in it had snuck up, ready to attack if the blankets were unable to finish the job.

I untangled myself from the cozy death grip, only to step on a handful of thumbtacks that had pooled around the foot of my bed. The buzzing had built up again while I was sleeping, and now I had to deal with the consequences.

At least I'd learned yesterday that I could drain my batteries, as it were. I should have thought to do it last night, but I hadn't. Better late than never, I guessed, and I set up the arc between my pointer fingers, seeing how far I could stretch it. Pretty far. A couple inches maybe before it fizzled out. The buzz faded and I got ready to go meet with Richie at the abandoned gas station.

I grabbed my backpack, already full of odds and ends from around the house and tried to put on my shoes while I ran out the door.

"Someone's in a hurry," Pops said, looking up from his newspaper.

"Yeah, gotta meet Richie, bye!" I jammed my foot into my shoe and jumped down the front steps without touching a single one.

The gas station was closer to Richie's house, so of course he was already there when I got there.

"Heya, V." He was sitting in one of the lawn chairs, reading some old notes from freshman science class. I was willing to bet all my money which unit he was reviewing.

"Lemme guess. Electricity?"

"No, the life cycle of plants," he said, closing the notebook. "Of course electricity. Did you find all the stuff?"

"Kinda." I took the other chair and started emptying my backpack onto the table. Some wires, a couple new lightbulbs, Sharon's hair dryer, a pack of batteries. I'd grabbed a few other things that Richie hadn't put on the list too—a wool hat, a handful of paperclips, some fridge magnets...

"No multimeter?"

"Sorry, man." I'd looked everywhere, but Pops wasn't a handyman. "Maybe we can get one at school tomorrow?" We'd used them in a couple labs last year, the black boxes with the swinging needles and little alligator clips. They were kinda fun.

"Maybe. I'm sure we can find one somewhere. Till we do, we don't have a way of knowing how much juice you're putting out. Electricity's dangerous stuff."

"Yeah, man, I know." We'd got this huge safety lecture last year about not putting our tongues on the batteries in lab, and I'd seen enough people getting tazed on the news to know what a few too many volts could do to a person. I really might end up killing somebody if I wasn't careful, and given that I spent more time with Richie than anybody else... I had to be careful.

"Let's make a list," Richie said, opening a new page in the notebook. He clicked his pen. "What can you do?"

"Just those two things. Screw with lights and electronics and make sparks."

"Right." He made a note. "I bet it's really just one thing; generating current. Or maybe voltage?" He turned back to his notes from class. I still remembered the difference, even though it had been a while ago. Current was how much juice was flowing, and voltage was the difference in charges between two things. If you touched something with high (well, not _too_ high) current, but low voltage, you'd be okay, and same deal for high-ish voltage and low current. It was high current, high voltage that was the danger. High-high meant lots and lots of electrons really excited to get where they were going.

"I guess we should see if it's AC or DC," Richie said. "Any ideas?"

I thought about it. Richie hadn't been kidding when he'd said we were gonna do science. Fortunately we were both graduates from our elementary school's gifted program. It was a miracle we didn't own our own lab coats already.

"If it's AC, I should be able to power something that plugs into the wall. If it's DC, then I can power something that takes batteries."

"Right," Richie said, writing. "But not lightbulbs, 'cause those work with both."

"Uh-huh." I picked up the hairdryer, holding the end of the cord in one fist. "Here goes." I reached for that buzz in my chest again, regretting now that I'd used a lot of it up before leaving the house. Maybe it was a good thing though, because before I willed up any power, I remembered that the hairdryer had two prongs for a reason. I changed my grip and started feeding power in.

Something didn't feel right though. AC was called alternating current because rather than the electrons flowing in one direction across the wire, they wiggled back and forth. I didn't quite get how this made things like hair dryers or electric fans work, but I guessed I didn't really need to understand it, I just needed to do it.

So, rather than pushing the buzz out exactly, I tried making it buzz more, vibrate, getting bigger. The hair dryer made a weak hum. Nothing too exciting, just enough to tell me I could do it.

I quit pushing and grinned at Richie.

"So. Cool." He reached under the table. "Now this." He handed me an RC car with the batteries taken out.

I was pretty drained by now, but the car turned out to be a piece of cake. The wheels spun in the air, going nowhere. I set it on the ground and the car sped away from me, slowing to a stop before it hit the far wall.

"Huh. Think you can do it without touching it?" Richie asked. He picked up the car and set it on the floor near my feet.

I reached for the juice one more time. There wasn't much there, but what little there was I pushed towards the car. It gave a feeble whir and inched away from my sneakers.

I sat on the table, pooped. "I'm done, Rich."

Richie stood up straight and tapped his pen against the notebook. "I think we have everything we need for today," he said in a pompous voice. "We can do more tomorrow though, right?"

"'Course." I held up a fist.

Richie bumped it, but there was a half a second of hesitation there, just barely long enough for me to notice it.


	3. Bang Babies

**3 Bang Babies**

Dr Malloney sits in her office, weeping. She'd held her own in dealing with the aftermath of the '96 riots, but this... Even though there aren't as many patients this time around, even though her hospital is better equipped and more fully staffed, this is infinitely worse.

 **3.1 Hotstreak**

Frieda Goren watched in horror as the sweaty kid in the hoodie fell to his hands and knees in the corner of the record shop. Her first thought was that he was a druggie and that he was tripping out or overdosing or something. She didn't have much experience dealing with drug addicts.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she ought to be doing something. That she'd learned how to deal with emergency situations like this. But First Aid week in health class had been a long time ago, and she couldn't remember all the acronyms anymore or what they stood for. All she could do was stare as the boy in the hoodie arched his back, snarling.

"Hey," the dreadlocked clerk called out. "What's going on over there?"

The boy in the hoodie looked up at Frieda and she screamed. He wasn't a boy at all, but some kind of monster. He had a snout like a dog, flaming yellow eyes and purple fur. He got to his feet and Frieda saw that he had claws for hands and his legs were over-long and had too many joints in them. His clothes didn't fit either, pulling apart at the seams.

The werewolf snarled and stalked forward. Frieda dropped the 'Lil Romeo CD she'd been looking at and turned to run, the monster coming after. She had shoes on though, and she could hear the werewolf's clawed feet slipping on the linoleum.

She made it too the street and started calling for help. The werewolf crashed through the door behind her just as she caught sight of a familiar face.

"Francis!" She didn't know him that well, just that he was a grade or two above her in school and he was on the wrestling team, which she'd written an article about back in fall quarter. "Call-"

She had been about to say "Nine-one-one" but the werewolf bowled into her, knocking her to the ground and all of a sudden she was hurting, tangled in a mess of over-long limbs and gnashing teeth.

"Hey!" she heard Francis shout and the weight on her back was torn away, claws scraping her skin. She rolled over to see the werewolf twist out of Francis's grip, leaving a few shreds of hoodie in his hand.

The werewolf stumbled and started running, but Francis was on its tail.

"Stop!" He shouted and grasped at the monster again.

Frieda gasped. Licks of orange flame burst into life around his hand and more appeared on the monster's back. Frieda could feel the heat of the flames all the way from where she was laying on the ground.

The monster wailed and fell to the ground, writhing, while Francis watched. Smoke poured upwards from under his beanie and flames still flickered around his hand. Then they went out. Francis put his hand to his mouth and swore. He grabbed his beanie from his head and started beating out the fire on the monster's back.

Frieda stared. All his gorgeous red hair was gone, shaved to stubble.

She blinked, realizing that she was far from the only person staring. The clerk from the record shop and half a dozen pedestrians stood frozen like statues, while car horns honked at the stopped traffic.

The fire put out, Francis stood up straight, looking around. "What?" he shouted at the nearest onlooker, a woman in a yellow dress. "What're you looking at?"

The woman cringed.

"What are you?" a man asked.

Francis turned on him, then looked around again at his audience. "You can call me... Hotstreak." For emphasis, he put his hands out in front of him, making the flames appear again.

A murmur started up, and Frieda remembered that she was still laying on the ground. She pushed herself to her feet.

"Francis?" she asked, as sirens started going off somewhere nearby. It _was_ him, but what had happened to him?

But he didn't answer. He shook the flames off his hands, making the onlookers jump and cower, and slouched down the street.

No one attempted to follow him.

"You know that guy?" the clerk from the record shop asked.

"Yeah, kinda." She was going to get to know him a lot better at school tomorrow. Frieda couldn't help smiling to herself a little. This was going to get her an A in Journalism class, for sure.

 **3.2 Video Clip**

Me, Pops and Sharon sat in the living room, eating dinner. Normally Pops was against eating in front of the TV, but today it was different.

"Shh, they're showing the clip!" Sharon said, even though no one was talking. She turned up the volume.

The video was security camera footage, black and white. It had sound though, so we were able to hear the wolf-man's snarls turn into yelps as a tall guy in baggy pants set him on fire. Not with a lighter or flamethrower, but just by pointing a finger at him. Flames wreathed the guy's hands, whiting out the image. And then he put the fire out with his hat.

"What are you?" a man off-camera asked.

The fire guy answered, "You can call me... Hotstreak." Another gout of flame.

I almost knocked my plate out of my lap. "No way!"

"What?" Sharon asked.

"I... I think I know that guy." I couldn't be sure. The sound quality wasn't that great, and Francis Stone had hair. But the face and the build were about right.

"What?" Sharon shrieked.

I put a finger in my ear and winced. "He looks kinda like this kid from school. Might not be him though."

Sharon started talking about the clip, but I couldn't focus on her. The gas leak, these powers, Francis... How had Francis ended up on the docks on Friday night? He was no gangster. And what about that wolf-man? Had the gas leak done that to him? Was that something that was gonna happen to _me_? At least now I knew that everyone who breathed the gas didn't get electrical powers like I did.

"Did the police catch him?" I asked, interrupting Sharon's monologue.

She humphed. "They should."

"Sharon, I'm not so sure," Pops said. "It looked to me like that other... guy had attacked somebody."

"Hotstreak set that guy on fire! I mean, maybe it was a dog, but that's just as bad. And then he threatened all those people. That's just way too dangerous."

"I don't think we know enough to be making these kinds of judgments," Pops said. "We don't know who these people are or what their situation is. And it's up to the government to help them."

I spoke up. "I'm with you, Pops. Maybe Hotstreak can't control himself."

"Well, he can get help on the inside," Sharon said. "Someplace where he's not gonna burn down the city."

An interview with the chief of police came on. The chief looked grim, but didn't sound too concerned about the situation.

"I can only assume that this was at best a hoax, and at worst a freak accident. We are of course searching for both this so-called 'Hotstreak' and the man in the costume, but details as to their whereabouts are unavailable at this time."

The phone rang and Sharon turned off the sound as Pops answered.

"Oh, hello, doctor," he said into the receiver and wandered into the other room, cord trailing behind him. Sharon and I exchanged a glance.

"Yes, of course I'll be there. No, I don't mind speaking."

There was a pause, and then, "Good, good. I'll meet with you tomorrow."

Pops came back and returned the phone to its cradle. "That was the chief of medicine at North Dakota Hospital. She wants me to speak at the city council meeting next week."

Sharon humphed again. "I hope you can knock some sense into 'em, Daddy."

The three of us watched the news for a while more, until the information started repeating, and then Pops went up to bed. It was mostly speculation anyway.

"You don't think it's true," I said, trying to play innocent, "that the gas leak from the pier is mutating people?"

Sharon grimaced. "What else could it be?" She turned off the TV. "Night, Virgil."

"Night."

I sat on the couch for a while, thinking. All those people at the dock? Ninety-nine percent of them had been gangsters. And if all of _them_ were getting superpowers or turning into monsters, it was going to be more than the police could handle. The Justice League might be able to help, but they were awfully busy protecting the planet from aliens and evil A.I.s. Batman and Robin were needed in Gotham, and the same went for Superman in Metropolis. And that was pretty much it as far as superheroes went.

Absentmindedly, I played with a spark between my fingers. I had an idea forming in the back of my head, but I would need to talk to Richie before I did anything drastic.

 **3.2.1 Feeding the Ducks**

Mayor Taggarty sat on a bench at the edge of the pond with a bag full of breadcrumbs by her feet. Ducks paddled hopefully nearby. It was nighttime, but the constant lights of the city confused the animals' sleep patterns and gave her a moderate excuse as to what she was doing out there.

After a few minutes, a gaunt, white haired man joined her, a similar bag in hand. He had an earpiece in one ear and a device like a pager in one hand. He consulted the pager and smiled at the mayor. Given who he was, it had to be more than just your average pager, but Mayor Taggarty didn't ask what it was.

"You'll hold up your end of the deal?" the gaunt man asked.

"I'll hold off the investigations as long as I can. I had high hopes for this project and I don't want to see your efforts go to waste."

"As long as you buy my lawyers and researchers some time," the gaunt man said. He set his bag of bread crumbs on the ground. "I would invest in construction in the meantime."

"How much time?" the mayor asked. The last thing she wanted was for her city to be reduced to rubble.

"Once the lawyers get started, it's only a matter of throwing money at them. The researchers... Outside a year. Inside five."

The mayor pursed her lips. Five years wasn't an answer she wanted to hear.

"Anything I can do to mitigate the problem I will do," the gaunt man said. "As you know."

The mayor almost looked down at the bags of bread crumbs, but she restrained herself. "You'll keep me updated every step of the way," she said, as though she was the one fully in control of this situation.

"Of course."

Mayor Taggarty stood, picking up a bag of bread crumbs. The gaunt man did the same and they both left.

 **3.3 Static**

"What do you think?" I asked Richie towards the end of lunch. He looked conflicted.

"I dunno, man. There's a lot of stuff you gotta do before you can even start thinking about crusading. You gotta get a costume and a name and equipment, which isn't gonna be cheap. And then you're gonna have to train your powers and find some kind of alibi to tell your Pops. I can see why you'd wanna do it, but..." He adjusted his glasses, frowning in concentration. The fact that he wasn't bringing up the danger aspect made me think that he was really in favor of the plan.

"I got it all thought out," I said. "I'll get a job at Burger Fool to get the cash, and then quit once I'm done training. If I don't let Pops know that I quit right away, I've got money and alibi all rolled into one, at least for a while. I already have the powers and you've got a secret hideout, and those are like the only two things any hero really needs." This was what I'd been thinking about instead of paying attention in English this morning.

"You might have a few flaws in your plan there, man." He grinned. "Fortunately you've got the plan master on your side."

"Okay, plan master. Lay it on me."

"Lemme think about this first. It's a tricky situation. But we have a bigger problem to deal with right now." He sounded serious, like life or death serious.

"What?"

"We gotta figure out what your hero name is gonna be," he said, and I laughed.

"I dunno. I hadn't really thought about it."

"Well then, how about Electric Slide?" he suggested, sliding his fingertips across the computer table.

"I'm not calling myself after a dance move."

"Tesla's Revenge?"

"What does that even mean? 'Sides, it's gotta be something short, like Batman."

"Zapman?"

I shook my head.

"What about that thing you said the other day? Static."

Static. It was short, punchy, and electric-themed. It didn't sound too dangerous either. Static shocks weren't going to kill anybody.

"Yeah, I like it."

The door to the computer lab opened and Richie and me both jumped and tried to hide our lunches behind our backs. But it wasn't Mr Decker coming to check in on us, it was Frieda Goren, a friend of ours. I'd gone on a date with her a while back, but it had been kinda awkward and we hadn't gone for a second. We were still friends though.

"Have you guys seen Francis Stone?" Frieda asked.

"What, no time for a hello?" Richie said.

"Didn't you see him on TV?" I asked. I'd be surprised if she hadn't. Frieda was a huge news buff.

Frieda shook her head. She had a crazy glint in her eye. "Yeah, but I was there! I gotta interview him, V. Think about it. A real live superhero here, in Dakota. Who goes to our school!"

I held up a hand for her to slow down. "Wait. Superhero? Francis _Stone_? The guy's a nutcase. Cookier than coco-puffs. If he really does have superpowers, he's gotta be a villain, not a hero."

"He's a bully, Frieda," Richie said. "He attacked Virgil two times this last month."

Frieda put her hands on her hips and scowled at us. "I still gotta interview him. And if you haven't seen him...?"

"Nope," I said. "Sorry, Frieda."

Frieda's shoulders slumped. "Well, thanks anyway, guys."

"Where do you think he is?" I asked Richie after Frieda had gone.

"I dunno. Even if he's not in jail, I don't think he's gonna be coming back to school anytime soon. Chrome dome is not his look."

 **3.4 Ebon**

A new being needed a new name. He was a man no longer, but a god. Master of space and darkness. Lord of the blackest night. Ebon.

A spiraling vortex of black and violet appeared at his whim upon the subway wall and Ebon slid his corporeal form through to the interior of the bank vault. He scooped the bundles of bills into one hand not much smaller than the vault itself. It only took a moment. And then he was slipping through the portal again, back to the abandoned tunnel he had claimed for the time being.

Dumped on the floor, the money made a small heap. It was disappointing. Of course money was only a means to get other things, not an end in and of itself.

But it was a start.

Ebon slipped through the shadows of alleys and backways, sussing out his next job. The credit union across the street from the police station. He smiled to himself, secure in his superiority. All darkness was his domain, and he knew all that lay within it. Here too, the vault was unlit.

First a portal back to his lair, and then a new one between there and the interior of the vault. It was far, just on the edge of his range, but his limits needed testing.

The contents of the second vault joined the first, and Ebon returned to the scene of the crime, hiding in the shadow of a parked police car. Alarms went off and the cops came running. Heavy, slow and late.

The car drove off, towards the site of the first job and Ebon clung to its underside until it stopped and he could create another portal. A few more portals brought him to a jewelry store. Here was a challenge.

Ebon materialized in a darkened employee breakroom and oozed between the gaps around the door. The hall outside was lit and he recoiled for a second, but recovered. Light forced him to take a shape, but he could still manipulate that shape.

A tall man clothed in shadow strode into the store proper and smashed a tire-sized fist into the nearest display case. Mortals screamed at him and Ebon sneered back. Glittering stones and precious metals disappeared into his inky hands.

The store manager, a perfectly coiffed white woman, was talking on the phone, telling the police to please hurry.

Ebon reached across the room, gems spilling from where he'd stashed them inside his arm and crushed the phone between his fingers. The woman sobbed and collapsed to the floor, no longer quite so coiffed.

Ebon collected his treasures again and placed himself at the entrance to the store, waiting to face the cops. Sirens sounded in the distance and Ebon decided he'd rather not give up too much of his advantage just yet. He punched one hand into the wall itself and tore out a fistful of wires. The lights overhead went out.

More screams and the last of the patrons rushed past, trying to escape. This was their wisest option, so Ebon let them go. Most of them. When the manager tried to flee he grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her, flailing, into the middle of the ruined showroom. She got to her feet and tried to run again, this time out the back. She almost made it to the hall before Ebon grabbed her and dragged her back again. Another tip of the scale towards his advantage. The cops wouldn't unleash their worst against him if he had a hostage.

The cops finally arrived, three cars in quick succession. Between their bright lights and the sunshine Ebon couldn't see much of what they were doing, but he could sense their shadows moving, little pinpricks of understanding within his sphere of influence.

They hid behind the doors of their cars and their leader plugged a microphone into a jack in his dash.

"Come out with your hands up!" he shouted in a voice so sincere it was funny. A parody.

Ebon hollowed out a space in his chest for lungs and created all the other necessary parts for human speech. The voice he created didn't need a microphone.

"You come, and show me what you're made of."

"Put your hands on your head and exit the store slowly!" the cop called back, and they had an exchange for a while in which the cop demanded that he exit and Ebon declined. He let the manager woman go, to see how the cops would respond.

Eventually the shooting began. Bullets pierced his body, but they were nothing more than stinging flies. They hurt, but he could pull the stings out later. Still he didn't move and the cops advanced in that awkward crab walk they were trained to use. It might even have been a good defense against guns, Ebon supposed.

Once they were under the shadow of the store, Ebon struck. He reached out with one elongated arm and grabbed the helmet of the first cop. He tried to throw him to the ground, but he just didn't have the strength or the leverage. The man stumbled, but didn't lose his balance.

Before the man recovered his footing, Ebon grabbed his pantleg and sent him sprawling. The other cops responded with more gunshots, shattering the remainder of the display cases inside and filling Ebon's body with hot metal.

Ebon felt ill. Maybe he wasn't as invincible as he had thought. It was probably time to leave.

Creating a portal took some focus, and Ebon was more than just a little distracted by the flying bullets and the advancing cops. But they were frightened of him and didn't approach as quickly as they could have. Ebon created the portal just as the first of the cops reached him and slipped through into his lair.

He landed on his hands and knees, shaking. But the darkness here buoyed him up, lessening the pain of the bullets inside him. All he had to do was close the portal and then he could force them out, along with the diamonds he'd managed to steal.

He got to his knees and focused on the portal, but it wouldn't close. A pair of legs stuck out of it, dangling towards the roof. Sounds reverberated through the swirling purple walls of the portal, a tangible link to the chaos back at the jewelry store.

Ebon grabbed one of the dangling legs and with what seemed like the last of his strength, pulled the man the rest of the way through. He closed the portal and lay on his back, shuddering.

The man who had fallen through was sobbing, calling for help, asking where he was. He groped the floor like a blind man. Ebon gathered the strength to stand.

"You." He read the man's badge. "Jordan. You will be my emissary. I am Ebon, and this city will be mine!"

Ebon made one last portal directly under the man, leading back to the first bank he'd robbed earlier that day. The man's screams winked out as the portal closed behind him. Ebon melted into a pool on the floor and began the tedious task of removing the bullets from his semi-solid self.

While he did this, he thought about what had just happened. He wasn't strong enough to face a half a dozen armed humans on his own, at least not yet. He'd kept the situation mostly to his advantage, and he'd still gotten hurt. What he needed was something to further that advantage. He needed followers.

3.5 Adam

Adam sat on the couch at Sharon's house, watching the news. Robberies, fires, attacks. The police were rushing around but it didn't look like they were doing any good.

Sharon held his hand. He knew she was afraid, close to tears because she was reminded of the '96 riots. He was afraid because he'd just seen his brother Ivan die in his arms not quite three days ago, just after the original Big Bang explosion. He'd just melted away into nothing and there hadn't been a thing Adam or anyone else could do. And now Adam was one of them, one of the so called 'bang babies,' the poor freaks mutated by the gas.

He didn't want to die in Sharon's lap, disintegrating, so he held himself together with will power. Sharon's arms helped.

"I'm okay?" he whispered, wondering if he was falling apart.

She looked up at him, patted his cheek. "You're okay."

Adam let out a pent up breath and relaxed, just a little. Too much more and he might start slipping, stretching out of shape. Just like Ivan before he'd...

Adam blinked back tears and tried to focus on the TV as some kind of armadillo-man leapt into a dumpster, pursued by cops.

More clips showed other horrifying scenes. A man with glowing swords for hands getting wrestled into a cop car, a woman with a complexion like a brick wall smashing a passerby with a fist like a cinder block...

All of a sudden Sharon got up.

"What? What is it?" Adam asked, his voice cracking for the first time since puberty. Had he started to disintegrate?

"I'm going to the hospital. They're gonna need people to donate blood."

"But—"

"I know, hun. But I gotta help. You wait here, okay?"

Adam got off the couch, grabbed her hand. "Shar, it's not safe."

"I know." She pulled him in closer, kissed the corner of his mouth and let him go. He watched her put her shoes on and leave.

"But you were helping me," Adam said to the empty room. He sat back down and watched the TV, praying he wouldn't see Sharon on it.

 **3.5.1 Emergency Procedures**

The PA came on in the middle of technology class, interrupting Mr. Decker.

The tinny voice of the principal said, "Students, staff, we have a rainy day situation. Code downpour. Stay tuned for updates."

I looked around at my classmates in surprise. Now that I thought about it, there had been a lot more sirens today than was normal.

The new girl, Daisy, leaned over to ask me, "What's that?"

"There's something bad going down near the school. We gotta stay inside," I said in a quiet voice, but still loud enough for most of the class to hear. Just in case anybody else was new or forgetful.

"I don't think we had anything like that at my old school," Daisy said.

"Welcome to Lakeside," the guy across from us said.

Eventually the sirens stopped and the principal came back on to let us know it was safe. My classmates didn't look so sure though, and I felt guilty. Bad stuff was happening and I had the power to stop it. The sooner I could get out there, the better.

* * *

 **Author's note.** Woo! Things are getting interesting. Next chapter deals with Francis "Hotstreak" and his motivations


	4. Francis's Search

**4 Francis's Search**

A cloud of purple smoke envelops the girl. Pain like nothing she's ever felt, like a thousand tiny hooks pulling her apart. Through the semi-opaque gas she sees her hands spread thin, become invisible, insubstantial. Soon her body is gone, dissolved to nothing. And yet, somehow, she still lives.

 **4.1 Lock Down**

Francis had had an exciting weekend. First he'd managed to land himself a gig driving a getaway boat, then he'd been in a gang fight and an explosion. After that he'd randomly learned how to set things on fire with his mind, accidentally burned off all his hair, got in a fight with his mom, got in a fight with a werewolf, got chased by the cops, and finally got locked up in a cell by himself.

A man-nurse had been coming 'round every so often with a paper cup of chill pills, so being in lock down had been pretty enjoyable so far.

The current dose was starting to wear off though, and Francis was beginning to realize that something was wrong with this picture. He'd been in lock down before, and they hadn't given him free chill pills then, or let him have a cell to himself. This wasn't the overnight holding cell at the police station either. Those walls had been smooth cement. These were rough and the door was solid steel, not just bars.

Something was definitely off, and Francis decided he needed to figure out what it was.

The man-nurse came back a half hour or so later with another paper cup and two white pills. Francis took them with a pretending-to-be-high smile and tipped his head back, swallowing saliva. The nurse left again and Francis caught a glimpse of a blue uniform outside the door, not quite the color of a cop's getup.

Francis focused on the pills inside his mouth and his newfound powers. Apparently if you learned how to set things on fire with your thoughts, you automatically became fireproof, even if your hair and clothes didn't.

And now he had a mouthful of smoke and ash. He coughed into his shirt, wiped his tongue on the back of his hand and got up to see what all was in the cell. Nothing much. A cot, a toilet, an overhead light and the steel door. A tiny red LED blinked in one corner of the ceiling, which meant either a camera or a smoke detector.

Francis laughed. It didn't matter to him what it was. It wasn't even worth the trouble of setting it on fire. He dug into that well of heat and passion that must have until recently just slipped his notice and turned his thoughts to the door.

Specifically the handle. Even if the steel was twice as thick there, the handle was the weak point. Rather than burn down the whole thing, all he had to do was destroy that one part.

The steel started to glow, dull red at first, then brighter and brighter. The fire alarm went off and Francis dug into the well, like a volcano sucking up lava to spew into the sky. The air wavered around him and flames played around his hands and on top of his head.

Once it started getting hard to breathe Francis made a fist and slammed it into the waxy, white-hot steel.

The door sheared open with a metallic groan and cool air rushed into the cell, making the flames around him dance wildly. Voices were shouting out in the hall, but Francis couldn't make out the words over the wind. Laughing, he walked out into the hall, his shoes leaving gummy footprints on the floor.

Half a dozen men armed with guns and dressed in firemen's coats blocked his exit. The coats didn't cover their legs though. Francis raised a hand and the four men dropped to the floor, writhing.

Francis's smile faltered at the screams. The fun of the situation was gone now and he suddenly felt a whole lot more sober than he had a moment ago. He didn't actually want to burn these cops alive, any more than he'd wanted to kill that werewolf thing.

But now he was facing a problem he'd encountered before with the werewolf. Once he got started, it was hard to stop.

Francis jumped over the cops' bodies, trying to think about anything but fire. But it was hard, like trying not to think about elephants when you were in a room full of them. The whole prison was hot as hell and flames covered his hands. He couldn't _not_ think about fire.

He ran past steel doors, trying to put distance between himself and the cops. More cops tried to block his path and he careened through them, unstoppable. Screams followed in his wake.

A door exploded at his touch and Francis found himself in a stairwell. He ran up it, burst through another door and came to another sort of hallway, carpeted and pleasant. A good sign.

The paint blistered as he ran past and he could see sprinklers descending from the ceiling, but the water evaporated before it could touch him. _I guess I won't need to buy umbrellas ever again._

The carpeted hall led to an office lobby with a security desk in the middle. An overweight black man was yelling into a phone, but Francis ignored him and crashed through the glass doors on the far side.

The street outside was mostly empty; the real cops and firefighters hadn't arrived yet, luckily for them. Francis ran without looking back, dazed and sick to his soul.

 **4.2 Cooldown**

Eventually Francis made it to the edge of the lake, south of the marina where all the fancy waterfront houses were. His clothes had mostly burnt off, but at least his boxers were more or less intact. A little charred in places.

He walked, ignoring the cars that honked at him, ignoring that sick dread in his heart, ignoring the tough asphalt on his bare feet. He tried to focus only on moving forward, _not_ thinking about anything that could burn.

It wasn't until the houses had started thinning out and the trees were filling in that Francis began to feel that he had himself under control again. He left the road and pushed through some underbrush to go sit on a fallen log by the side of the lake.

The water was glassy and calm, a great day for fishing. Maybe if it stayed nice he would walk back to the marina and take his dad's boat for a spin.

That would be a great distraction from what he'd done. Francis put his head in his hands. It hadn't been his fault, right? First off, those guys had been asking for it, and second, he hadn't _wanted_ it to happen, it had just happened on its own. That was the nature of fire, right? You got it started and then it just kind of grew on its own from there. He'd fed it too much trying to burn down the door, and it had just gone wild.

It couldn't be murder if he hadn't wanted to do it. Homicide, yes, murder, no. Maybe not even homicide, but self-defense.

He looked out on the lake. Too bad there wasn't a way to get to the ocean from here. Then he could take the boat and just cruise down to Mexico or Cuba or someplace. Oh well. He entertained a fantasy of him and Maria running away to Mexico. He would eat tacos on the beach and she would teach him Spanish.

Another guilty pain twisted in his heart. Where _was_ Maria? Had he really not seen her since Friday? He'd thought about her, sure, but he hadn't thought enough to call her or anything. He didn't even know if she was okay or if she'd been hurt in the explosion. Or the gang fight. Or been caught by the police...

Francis swore. If she was okay, she was gonna kill him, no matter his excuses. And if she wasn't okay he would do it himself.

Francis got up off his log, climbed back up to the road and started jogging for the marina.

He didn't have the code for the yacht club, but he did know the one for the bathroom and laundry room. Technically only people who lived on their boats were supposed to have those codes, but Francis had made a point to learn them because sometimes it was nice to have a place to shower or do laundry away from home.

Fortunately someone had left their clothes unattended in the dryer and Francis stole himself a t-shirt and a pair of paint encrusted jeans. Then he splashed some water on his face and went out to use the payphone at the top of B Dock before the owner of the painty jeans came back.

He dialed Maria's cell number, wondering if it would be worth it to tell his dad that he had lost his cell phone. He might get a beating or he might get a new cell phone. It was always hard to tell with Dad.

Maria didn't answer and Francis left a message on her machine. A long one with lots of apologizing and excuses. And then a second, shorter message telling her not to bother calling his cell, and that he'd be at the marina for a while.

Since he didn't have his keys on him, he waited for someone to open the dock gate, and slipped in behind them. Not much later, he had jimmied open the forward hatch on his dad's boat and was laying back in the aft cabin, picking the melted remains of his sneakers off his feet, hoping Maria would show up and trying to ignore the sirens that drove by every so often.

 **4.3 School Time**

It was Tuesday morning and Francis was lying in bed in his house, working up the resolve to go to school. The phone rang downstairs, and Francis's heart jumped. He threw himself out of bed and ran for the landline, but his mother answered. Francis stopped dead in his tracks, trying to make out what she was saying down in the kitchen. Her tone was curt.

Then the sound of the phone being hung up and a shout.

"Francis!"

Francis passed a hand over his stubbly scalp and sauntered down the stairs. "What?"

"Why aren't you at school?" His mother stood at the foot of the stairs, wearing a bathrobe and last night's makeup. "And why did your teacher call _me_ to see where you were?"

"I dunno, 'cause you're my _mom_?" He tried to slip past her, but she slammed her hand into the wall.

"You are _so_ lucky your father's not here. You march back up there, get dressed and get yourself to class. It's enough that you run wild on the weekends, but skipping school? I'm not going to tolerate it, Francis. Not while I'm responsible for you."

Francis hunched his shoulders. "I'm going." He turned and got ready to leave, realizing he didn't have his wallet or any of the other stuff he'd had on him when he'd gotten picked up by the not-police. He swore. Now he'd have to cancel his credit card and get a new one sent.

He grabbed his backpack, threw in a notebook and a pen and ran down the stairs, spinning his keys on one finger. At least he hadn't lost those. His mother stared him down as he left.

He drove to the school on autopilot, trying to think what he had to do. First, he had to find Maria. Second, find out who it was who had locked him up the day before. Third, talk to his hook up with the Kids and see if he could still get paid for risking his life in the boat gig. Fourth, relieve some stress somehow. Punching something would help.

Maybe school was actually a good place to be going. Maria was a couple years older than him, and had only graduated last year. Lots of people knew her and lots of people were going to be at school.

The teacher gave him a sarcastic, "how nice of you to join us, Mr. Stone," when he arrived but at least she didn't say anything about his hair.

Francis grunted something that could be interpreted as an apology and sat at the back of the class. He waited for the teacher to get back into the swing of her lecture before he leaned over and asked the dude next to him, "Yo. You seen my girl Maria lately?"

"Nah, man," the guy said and leaned forward like he was paying attention to the lecture.

Francis leaned forward too so he could whisper in his ear, "Yeah, well, if you see her, or know of someone who's seen her, lemme know, 'kay?"

The guy said he would, and Francis leaned back in his chair, half listening to the lecture, half deciding who would be the best person to ask about Maria. Some chick, probably.

Eventually class ended and Francis used the five minutes before the next class to ask some strategically popular and chatty girls if they'd seen Maria. They hadn't but he knew he could count on them to spread the word, even without him asking them to.

A couple more pointless hours went by, and then it was lunch. Francis headed straight for his car and was out of the parking lot before anyone else had so much as started their engine. Maria's folks lived a ways away, and he had to be back before class started again. He'd rather not have the truant officer calling his mom twice in one day.

Compared to his house, Maria's house was tiny and sub-par, but compared to most the houses in Dakota, it was practically a palace. Three stories, manicured lawn, two car garage. Francis knocked on the door and was answered by Maria's mother, looking angry.

"Hey, Mrs. Alvarez. Is Maria around?"

Maria's mother scowled at him. "No. I have not seen her since Friday. She does not answer my calls, does not come home. I assume she is with you."

Francis shook his head. "No, I haven't seen her since then, and I don't think anyone from school has either. She didn't say anything to you, did she?"

Maria's mother didn't look quite as angry now. "No. She says nothing. I call the police, but they say, 'oh, we are so busy, I am sorry, we can't help.'" Francis could see now that Mrs. Alvarez's eyes were red and puffy, like she'd been crying.

"Seriously?" He swore, cussing out the cops. Mrs Alvarez smiled a little at that. This was the first time she'd warmed up to him at all, and Francis honestly wished she hadn't. He didn't want to be friends with Maria's mom and bond with her because Maria was missing. He'd rather have a grumpy Mrs. Alvarez and a Maria there to complain about it.

"What are you going to do?" Mrs. Alvarez asked. "Will you look for her?"

"Yeah, I'm looking." He got his notebook out of his backpack, wrote down the number to his parents' landline and handed her the page. "Lemme know if she shows up here, okay?"

Mrs. Alvarez took the page, folded it up. "You are a good boy, Francis." She patted his cheek and let him leave for school again.

He drove fast, and so he would have a couple minutes before the end of lunch to check on his sources, the popular girls. He got stopped in the parking lot though, by some underclassman girl he didn't know, but who looked kinda familiar. Long brown hair, green eyes.

"Francis," she said the minute he opened the car door. "I need to talk to you. It's important."

He stood, closed the door and locked it. "Yeah, alright." What did she know about Maria?

The girl looked around. "Can we go someplace private?"

That made Francis feel sick to his stomach. Whatever she knew, it wasn't going to be good. He unlocked his car again, the most private place on campus. People could see through the windows, but at least no one could listen in.

The girl took the passenger seat after a moment of hesitation. What, did she think he was going to attack her? He thought back to his recent exploits and decided that was exactly what she was thinking and totally right to think it.

"You're Hotstreak," the girl said, after digging a tape recorder out of her backpack.

Francis thought back and remembered where he'd seen this girl last. Right before that fight with the werewolf. And then he'd almost gone off on that old guy who'd asked him _what_ he was. Which had been super rude. Francis tried to remember exactly what he'd said.

"I guess. What's with the recorder?"

"I'm with the school paper. Can I interview you?"

Francis swore. "What? You're not here to tell me about Maria?"

The girl looked down at her recorder. "No, but I'm going to be a reporter and being a reporter is all about finding out stuff. I could help you look for her. And if we put this story in the paper, maybe someone who knows her will read it and-"

"Yeah, sure." No one actually read the school paper, at least Francis didn't think anyone did, but the reporter girl had given him an idea. Go to the real newspaper and have _them_ do a story, or print a missing persons thing like milk cartons did for kids sometimes.

"So I can record-?"

"I said sure."

The girl pushed a button on the recorder and the little wheels inside started to spin. She even had a microphone, which she set on the dash, pointed mostly at him.

"So." She opened up her notebook. "Francis. Rumor has it that you are actually the bang baby known as Hotstreak. Is that true?"

"What? What's a _bang_ _baby_?"

"You..." The girl looked at her recorder, like she was thinking about pausing it. She didn't. "You haven't seen the news?"

Francis just gave her a disgusted look. Did she really think he'd had time to sit and watch the news these past couple days, when all this stuff was going down?

"It's what they're calling the gang- the people who got caught in that gas leak on Pier Fourteen."

"Gas leak?" There could have been a gas leak that night, but between the explosions and the fighting and everything else, Francis must have missed it.

"Yeah. You were there, right?"

"So what if I was?" Francis congratulated himself on making it possible for him to deny having been there, in case his mom saw this and he needed to argue that no, he wasn't in a gang. Which he wasn't. He was more like a contractor.

"They all got powers, Francis," the girl said. "Or turned into monsters or..."

She kept on talking, explaining what the people on the news had said, but Francis wasn't listening. It was disappointing to learn that his powers weren't something latent, something special inside him that he'd only just discovered, but rather a side effect of some mysterious gas. But, it did make a lot more sense, and explained where that werewolf thing had come from. It also made him feel better about probably burning those guard guys alive. It wasn't really _his_ power, it was like some disease or symptom he'd been given, not a real part of himself.

Thinking of the guard guys again made his hands hot, so he focused on not thinking about fire.

He thought about Maria. She had been there, at the dock that night, inside the warehouse itself as part of the break in crew. Did that mean she had powers now too? Or what if she'd turned into some kind of monster?

"But," the reporter girl was saying, "they keep saying they don't have the resources to launch a full investigation of the scene..."

"Wait, before that, what did you say?"

"That they don't know where the gas came from?"

Francis frowned. The leader of the Kids would know where the gas had come from. He wouldn't have tried to rob the place if he hadn't known who owned it and what was inside. Well, he might not have known about the gas, and might have been after something else, but you didn't get to be a gang leader by doing stupid stuff like robbing random warehouses without figuring out how to get past security first and whether the goods inside were worth it.

"And these other bang babies, the cops've been locking them up?"

The girl nodded. "A few. If they committed crimes and got caught."

"Right." That ruled out the jail as a good place to look for either Maria or the leader of the Kids. The Kids were too smart to pull anything right now _and_ get caught if they did. Especially if they had powers. It also meant bang babies weren't being rounded up just for being bang babies. That was good.

"What's your next question?" Francis asked, and the girl consulted her notebook.

Francis ended up telling her only part of his story, leaving out getting locked up by those guys who probably weren't police. In the process he learned about what was going on at the hospital and how there was going to be a town hall meeting open to the public that evening.

Maybe watching the news was a good idea.

 **4.4 Town Hall Meeting**

The hospital turned out to be a bust. It was hectic and noisy and full of people trying to look for friends or relatives who might have been turned into monsters. Francis eventually got to talk to a stressed looking nurse, who told him that no, there was no Maria Alvarez on her list, but they had a lot of Jane Does and people they hadn't even been able to identify as Janes or Johns yet. Francis left his number on the call list and told the nurse he'd be back tomorrow.

He drove home, glad to find that his mother was out of the house. He called Maria's cell and left another message, then checked the messages on the landline machine. Mrs. Alvarez had called, and Francis called her back to tell her he didn't know anything new yet.

Then he called up his bank to get his cards canceled and made himself some food before driving down to the marina. Marina security was a joke, and sometimes Maria would meet him at his dad's boat after school. Maybe she would think to go there, even if she hadn't got his messages. In the back of his mind though, he was starting to get the feeling she might not have got those messages not because she'd lost her phone or turned into a monster, but because, what with the fighting and the explosions, she might not have got out okay.

Francis let himself onto B Dock and went down to the boat. It was empty, but that didn't mean anything. He cleaned up the mess he'd made with the melted rubber yesterday and killed some time before leaving for the town hall meeting.

He had a heck of a time finding parking and by the time he got to the auditorium it was mostly full. He found a seat with an okay view of the stage and waited for the mayor to come on.

Francis had never seen the mayor before, so he was surprised when she turned out to be a tiny black woman with short hair. He didn't even realize she was the mayor until she said, "and as your mayor, I..." during her opening speech. Her speech didn't have much to say really, just that everyone should be proud of the cops and the hospital and that they were "doing everything in their power to keep the city safe and determine the exact cause of this problem." But, she warned them, that what with the outbreak of crime and current lack of funding and staff, it would likely be a "long and difficult road" before everything went back to normal. She ended with some more feel-good words about the city pulling together and talked about the '96 riots as proof that they could overcome this crisis too.

Francis clapped along with everyone else when she was finished, but the applause wasn't very long or loud.

Then another woman stepped up to the podium, this one a worker at the hospital. She got all teary talking about some of the horrible things she'd seen as a result of the gas leak and the number of people who had died. Francis felt sick to his stomach hearing that. The way she'd said it made it sound like the gas had actually killed some of the people exposed to it. What if Maria...? Or what if he himself was a ticking time bomb, ready to literally explode any day now?

"And now, a few words from community leader Robert Hawkins of the Lakeside Recreation and Community Center," the MC said, and an overweight black man took the microphone.

"Madam Mayor, members of the council, on behalf of the community, I have a few questions I would like to ask." There was a pause as Hawkins pushed up his glasses and looked at his notes. "I believe, we _all_ believe, that the public has the right to know the exact status of this investigation. You cannot leave us in the dark as to the nature of this event. The citizens of Dakota are left wondering whether the Big Bang was an attack, an accident or something else entirely. We are left fearing for the health and safety of our friends and loved ones, and we are left wondering _will this happen again_?

"In these uncertain times, transparency is the key to trust, and now more than ever, the people of Dakota need to be able to trust their elected officials." Hawkins turned to the medical worker sitting in the front row. "I would like to commend Dr. Malloney for reaching out to the media and not shying away from making any new developments known, be they good news or bad." He paused while the audience applauded, this time with a whole lot of enthusiasm. Hawkins was a good speaker.

"My first question for you, Madam Mayor and members of the council is: How do you plan on informing the public about the root causes and motivations behind the big bang?"

The mayor leaned into her microphone. Francis had to crane his neck to see her, half hidden behind the heads of the audience.

"Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I assure you that we are doing everything we can to further the investigation. And I promise that the detectives in charge will disclose any and all information regarding the case as soon as it is within their legal and professional good interests to do so. Until such time, we all must wait, myself included."

A murmur ran through the audience, but quieted again when Hawkins started speaking. "In the meantime, what do you and the council plan on doing to prevent a second Big Bang situation?"

There was some shuffling around of microphones as the question was passed off to one of the other councilmen. This guy wasn't as good at public speaking, and Francis felt himself slip into classroom mode, drifting into an almost meditative state. A few words washed over him. Increased police force, improved waterfront security, video drones...

And then Hawkins was speaking again, asking about financing and Francis completely lost the thread. He found himself wishing Maria was there, so she could pay attention and explain it all for him later.

Finally the chief of police came up and gave some advice for what people should do if they encountered a bang baby, which sounded an awful lot like the PSA assembly they'd had back at the start of the school year about gun violence. Mostly he was saying to run away and call 911. Francis figured it was a good strategy. If _he_ went ballistic, for whatever reason, it'd probably be end of the road for anyone who tried to talk him down or confront him.

Francis smiled a little at the thought. He felt tough, knowing he could take on anybody if he needed to. That was something that'd give anybody confidence.

Then came questions from the general audience. Most of these were pretty nitty-gritty, so Francis got up and left. If anyone said anything important, the news girl would hear about it, and she could tell him.

He drove away, feeling like the meeting had been a waste of time. Even though Hawkins and the others had asked the questions and the mayor had responded, he still didn't really know anything new.

 **4.5 Buddy**

Francis called up his weed dealer. His mom still wasn't home, so it was safe to use the landline.

"Yo, Buddy. It's F-Stop. You seen Jackson lately?" Jackson was his man inside the Fuhrer's Children. Not the nicest guy, but he handed out jobs every once in a while.

"Nah, man. Not since before the BB. You don't think...?"

"Maybe. Who knows? Say, you haven't seen my girl Maria either, have you?" He leaned against the wall, looking at his fuzzy reflection in the darkened window. Maybe his hair would grow back before Maria showed up. Then she wouldn't have to see him all egg-heady.

"Nuh-uh. What, you think she's cheating?"

"With Jackson? Please." Francis rolled his eyes.

Buddy laughed. "There anything else I can get for you?"

"Nah," Francis said. He was kinda broke until his Dad decided to give him his allowance since it didn't look like the Kids were gonna pay him. "Though if you know anybody else in the Kids..."

"Hey, I'm not part of the Kids." Buddy's joking tone was gone now. "I just know Jackson 'cause him and me grew up together. If I was you, I wouldn't go after him right now. I mean, I don't even wanna know what some of those guys can do now. 'Least the ones that survived. And with the cops all riled up-"

"Yeah, I heard they're gonna buy some drones or something."

"Exactly. I'd leave them alone, F-Stop. Jackson owe you some money?"

"Yeah."

Buddy snorted. "You're not gonna get that back. Sorry, man."

Francis laughed. "You're only sorry 'cause now I'm not gonna give it to you."

They joked for a minute more and Francis hung up. He had a couple ideas on how to get in touch with the Kids, but Buddy was right. Getting tangled with them right now was a bad idea. Firepower or no.

So, scratch the Kids. Finding Maria was more important than finding out who made the gas, and besides, the cops were on top of that and probably way better at it than him.

He stared at himself in the window. He had to find her, but how? Where could she have gone? He'd checked with her friends, her family, the hospital. If she was in jail, her mom would have known. If she'd been turned into a monster, she would have known she could come to him, would have left him a message or a note.

She couldn't be dead. He refused to even think that. She had to be somewhere in the city, and if she hadn't contacted him, it was because she couldn't. And the only way she couldn't was if someone was stopping her.

Francis slapped a hand to his forehead. Of course. It was so obvious. The fake cops had her.

 **4.6 Bait**

Francis had stopped by the school early that morning to check in with the girls he'd asked to look for Maria and told them he'd found her, they didn't have to keep looking. This wasn't totally true, but it wasn't totally a lie either. He knew where she was, he just didn't know where that where was exactly.

So now he was walking along the edge of downtown, like he had been not too long after getting his powers. He picked out a mark pretty quick. A hotdog cart parked under some trees next to an empty lot. The stand would be insured, and no one was going to miss a couple trees.

Like cracking the tab on a soda he himself had shaken up, Francis thought about fire. His hands got hot and he focused on that, wondering what it would look like to see the hotdog cart go up in flames. Would the tires melt, or would they explode?

Smoke dribbled upward from the top of the cart. He glanced around, making sure there were people around to see, and then before the power started taking over too much he returned his gaze to the cart. Smoke billowed and there was a bang as the tire nearest to him exploded. The flames flickered on his hands now, and he could feel them on his head.

Francis laughed as the other tire popped and flames started licking up the sides of the trees around the cart. A man wearing a silly cardboard hat came running down the street, a piece of toilet paper clinging to his shoe. Francis ignored him and stalked towards the burning trees. The grass was catching now too, a red carpet laid out for the king of fire.

The hotdog man stood at the edge of the lot, watching his livelihood burn. Francis felt the urge to do to him what he'd done to the rest of the hotdogs, then realized this was the fire talking and set to work on backing down. Whenever part of him thought _more_ , he countered that thought with _nah, this is good_. The trees were burning nicely, like logs in the fireplace at Christmas time. And the sound of sirens was sweet carols.

Francis figured running from the cops would make him look extra guilty, so he ran, hot and hard and fast, his power wafting him along like a piece of ash. Then his pants caught fire and he didn't know how to put them out because his hands were on fire too. He stopped in the middle of the street, swearing, trying to shake the fire off his hands like it was water or sticky pieces of gum. Then the fire truck caught up with him.

A fireman sprayed him with white foam, which put out the flames, but kept on melting and bubbling and smoking after.

"Are you okay?" the fireman shouted, dropping the extinguisher and running over to him.

Francis drew back his arm and punched the man in the gut. The heavy fire coat took most of the blow, but the fireman still doubled over and coughed. Francis looked around for a police car, but didn't see one. Just a fire engine at the far end of the block, where the hotdog cart had been. Already they had hoses going and were redirecting traffic. An ambulance was parked next to the engine, red and blue lights flashing.

He drew out the fire again and focused on the fire engine. He reached out with one hand, palm facing the big red truck. This would bring the cops.

His shoes squelched as he walked, leaving a trail of foam behind him.

The windows were the first to go, followed by the tires. Then the gas tank caught and a fireball careened into the sky. Francis's excitement and joy were palpable, waves of heat washing off him. Some little voice in the back of his mind told him he should probably cool it, or this was gonna be like the prison all over again.

But the prison was what he wanted, right? The fake cops'd take him down sooner or later and then he could find out where they were keeping Maria.

It was the thought of Maria that brought him down off his high. For once, thinking of her wasn't a happy thought, it was a scared one.

The whirlwind of fire around him died down and Francis became aware of other people doing things. Firemen mostly, all suited up. A couple of them were aiming their remaining hose at the engine while the rest escorted bystanders to safety.

A black shape roared overhead and the next thing Francis knew he was drenched. A forest fire helicopter. Steam rose in clouds from his body, and the fire in him was out. It was a nice relief, like getting out of the shower after a long gym session. He looked down at himself, realizing his clothes were ruined again.

He watched as a second engine rolled up and the firemen went to work putting out the fire. It was kind of like watching ants running around in an ant farm. They all looked busy, but he didn't really follow what they were doing.

Once the blaze was under control one of the paramedics approached him, asked if he was okay.

Francis thought about assaulting him, but his heart just wasn't in it. He accepted a blanket from the paramedic and walked back to his car, wondering what it took to get arrested in this town.

 **4.7 Short Drive**

Half naked, Francis went for a drive. He'd gone _too_ big with the fire at the hotdog stand and now he didn't really have it in him to let out the fire again. He could feel it there, and it wanted out, but he wasn't going to let it.

Instead he tried acting smart.

He started at the marina and worked his way away from the lake, trying to retrace his steps after his crazy run away from the prison with the steel doors and the fake cops. Or maybe they weren't fake cops, and those had just been prison guard uniforms.

South led to the suburbs, north to the projects, and west brought him to a weird pocket of office buildings on the far side of downtown. His gut told him it had to be somewhere around here, but everything looked legit, all gleaming steel and tinted glass. No fire damage anywhere, nothing that looked like it could house a prison.

He drove around for a while longer, getting honked at for going ten under the limit, then gave up and returned to the marina.

There were some old blankets up in the forward cabin of the boat. Francis dragged these up onto the deck, wrapped himself up in them and stared up at the sky, thinking of the best way to get himself arrested by fake cops tomorrow.

 **4.8 Reunion**

Francis woke up cold and in the dark. There was a weird pressure in the air, a quietness. He should have heard the slosh of waves and the hum of traffic, but everything was muffled. His eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw that one of his blankets was draped over the railing.

The five day stubble on the back of his neck stood up in goosebumps.

"Who's there?"

" _Paco._ "

Francis was on his feet in no time. "Maria?" Paco was her nickname for him.

" _Yes._ "

Francis's breath came in short, pained bursts. The voice wasn't Maria's exactly, and didn't seem like it was coming from anywhere. Or maybe it was from everywhere.

"Where?" he whispered, even as his eyes were drawn to the blanket draped over the railing. Though he could see now it wasn't touching the railing, draped on nothing, hanging in the air, just touching the edge of the deck. He swallowed.

"Yo, girl, you don't gotta hide from me," he told the blanket. "I was there, I know what the gas can do. I seen a guy turned into some kind of purple wolf monster, so whatever it is I can take it." He passed a hand over his stubbly scalp. "It's not like I didn't get out totally fine."

No answer, but the blanket still hung there, not moving. The pressure in the air remained, still and quiet.

"Maria?" He took a step toward the blanket.

" _Don't_."

He stopped, arm outstretched.

" _No soy yo_."

Francis didn't know enough Spanish to know what she meant, but knew Maria well enough to know that whatever she was thinking, it was too personal, too important to say in English. He dredged up one of her favorite phrases. "Te quiero."

A ripple went through the air. " _I'm sorry, Francis. I am gone._ "

"Nah, girl. You're right here." He took a step forward, then another and pinched a fold of the blanket between his fingers.

 _"Don't,"_ Maria said, even as he was already pulling the blanket away.

He dropped it to the deck and took a step back in shock. There was nothing under the blanket.

 _"I told you, I am nothing._ " Her voice came from nowhere and everywhere.

Francis got over his shock pretty quick, thanks to all the crazy stuff he'd seen and done in the past week. "Nah. So you're a ghost. We can work with that."

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Yay, Francis found his girl, kind of? We'll learn what's up with Maria later. Next chapter returns us to Virgil and Richie. Virgil fights some guys.


	5. Caped Crusader

**5 Caped Crusader**

Mrs. McKinnon accepts the boys' money with a smile. It's so nice, she thinks, to see young men disregarding gender stereotypes and following whatever interests catch their fancy.

 **5.1 Test Run Preparations**

"Come on, V. Can't you give it any more juice?" Richie asked, looking between me and the sewing machine.

I leaned back in the lawn chair in the Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude and shook my head, too worn out for words. All I wanted to do was sleep for the rest of the day. I'd been training all week, and it showed. I'd learned a lot about my power, but I was exhausted.

"Fine, we'll take a break." He snipped the threads and pulled the partially finished costume out of the machine. "Stand up, try it on."

I reached out a hand and Richie pulled me to my feet, passed me the coat. We'd based the pattern on my old bathrobe, but made it less loose and baggy. The collar looked kinda funky, but Richie promised that once the hood was on, it'd look way better. The idea was that the hood would cover my head and face down to my nose, with holes cut so I could see. I had found a pair of solid old swim goggles I could use to protect my eyes, keep the hood on and hide my face.

I had a feeling I was gonna look pretty dorky, but that was better than someone figuring out who I was and revealing my secret identity to the public.

I looked down at the coat. It went pretty well with my black jeans and black hiking boots, and the lightning bolt design I'd painted on my white t-shirt was pretty awesome, if I did say so myself.

"Too bad we couldn't pick up like a bulletproof vest or something," I said.

"Yeah." Richie put his hand on his chin, thinking. "I think they make rope out of kevlar. We could wrap you up in some."

I laughed, not totally sure if he was joking or not and took off the coat. I collapsed again and Richie sat across from me in the other lawn chair.

"You ready for this?" he asked. The plan was that once we finished the costume, I would start facing off against the powered-up criminals who were trying to send the city back to the feudal age. I'd spent the allowance I'd saved up on a pair of decent walkie-talkies, so Richie could act as lookout and scout while I went on patrol. It was both a relief knowing he had my back, and a worry knowing he didn't have any way to defend himself if he got in any real danger.

"So ready." I'd learned how to generate lightning, stick stuff together with static cling or magnets, screw with electronics—mainly making them turn on or blow up. I'd even figured out how to detect magnets and electricity-generating stuff within my aura. Batteries, power lines, people and animals. Maybe if this superhero thing didn't work out, I could be the world champ of hide and seek.

Richie held out a fist and we bumped. "You know, I've been thinking."

"Yeah?" I prompted.

"I think you could fly."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah... I tried that already. It didn't work." I figured that even if I wrapped myself in magnetic armor, it would still work about as well as trying to pick myself up off the ground by my own shoelaces.

"You'll need something to stand on, but I bet if you magnetized the metal stuff in the ground enough, and had it repel whatever you're standing on, you could get off the ground."

I sat up straighter, wishing I wasn't so burnt out, or I'd try it right now. "Hey, yeah. That might work."

"It'd probably be just a couple inches, at least at first, but the way your power's been growing..."

I nodded. He wasn't kidding. I had the feeling that every time I burned myself out, drained my batteries, the juice came back stronger than before, like a muscle after a workout. I was still worried about exploding or hurting somebody, since the juice was kinda hard to control when it was at full power. I had to keep grounding myself, but every time I did, I was just building that muscle up more. Maybe it'd balance itself out, but I had the feeling that wasn't the case.

"So," I said, leaning my head against the back of the lawn chair and closing my eyes. "Who do you think I should go after first?"

"I dunno. That shadow guy?"

"Ebon?"

"Yeah. He doesn't seem to handle bright lights well, and you can literally make lightning. You are his weakness."

He also seemed really scary. Not that I was afraid of the dark or anything, just that he came off as so ruthless. And powerful. He would rob a place and then just vanish. Sometimes he hurt people, if they got in his way, but otherwise he'd let them go. Like he didn't care one way or the other. Sharon had said there was a rumor going around that he'd tried to take down a whole SWAT team. She said they'd shot him at least a dozen times, but he still got away.

"What about Kangor? The big feet guy?" I suggested.

"Yeah, I thought he got caught by the cops." There was a pause, and Richie said, "Or, what about, you know... Hotstreak?"

I looked at him without moving my head. "You really think that fire was him?" A fire truck had exploded earlier that week for no apparent reason, and one of the firefighters claimed a bald dude on fire had punched him.

Richie snorted. "V, how could it _not_ be him?"

"I dunno. I hope I don't have to. What if he recognizes me?"

"Come on. With the mask and the costume and everything? Besides, who's gonna suspect Virgil Hawkins of being a bang baby?"

"How about Francis Stone, who saw me get rescued two times by a known member of the 'Nites?"

Richie pointed a finger at me. "Good point. So, just don't talk to him if you do run into him."

"But I've been coming up with so many good lines," I whined.

Richie placed a hand on my shoulder. "I know, man. I know."

 **5.2 Liftoff**

I planted my feet on the manhole lid hovering a couple inches above the train tracks. It wobbled as I centered my weight.

"Houston, this is Static. We have mag-lev. I repeat, mag-lev is go," I said into the walkie-talkie.

"Static, this is Houston. We read you loud and clear. Congratulations," Richie said in a fake southern drawl. If I turned my head, I could just see him on the hillside overlooking the tracks. "And don't forget to say over. Over," he added in a normal voice.

I adjusted my goggles and focused on the polarity of the tracks under my disk. A little pull forward, a little push behind. The disk slipped along at a walking pace, smoother than ice skating. I upped the power, picking up speed and height. I bobbed up and down as my momentum carried me further away from the tracks than my power could easily reach.

"Houston to Static. We see you've got some erratic altitude changes. Everything okay? Over."

"We're fine, over." I was starting to get into the rhythm of it now, evening out the altitude, controlling the speed. Going fast was a heck of a lot easier than going up. Soon the wind was whipping back my coat like a cape. I was invincible.

"Ready for time trials?" Richie asked, his voice distant and fuzzy.

"Ready." I slowed down, reversed direction and stopped just above an old five gallon bucket. We'd marked off a couple hundred feet of track with buckets just for the sake of seeing how fast I could go.

Richie gave me a countdown and at go I turned up the juice.

 **5.3 First Patrol**

We'd decided that it would be best if I didn't go wandering around in costume yet. Not until people knew who Static was and wouldn't harass me for my get up. So, Richie and me meandered through downtown, being sure to go past all the banks, the police station, the high-end stores...

"Maybe we should split up?" I said. "Cover more ground?"

"Yeah, not a bad idea," Richie said, and we made a game plan to maximize our coverage, him retracing the path we'd already taken, me moving on ahead.

I hitched up my backpack and kept on walking. How often was it that I actually saw a crime being committed? Not very often, even in a city like Dakota. What I needed was a source. Everyone knew to call the police when stuff got heavy, but no one knew Static even existed yet.

I snapped my fingers. That was it. The police. I ducked into an alley, made sure the coast was clear, and used my power to pull down the ladder of a fire escape. I climbed up, pulling on my coat and securing the goggles over my eyes.

I stashed my backpack in the corner of the fire escape landing and looked around for something metal. A piece of the AC unit in the window next to the landing. That would do it. I pulled it loose and hopped on.

The electric buzz extended around me, showing me where all the stuff was that could hold a charge, get polarized, resist shocks... I sent out a pulse and got launched into the sky, the thin sheet of metal under my feet repelling strongly against the electromagnets I'd made out of the stuff inside the building.

I landed on the next building with a clang, but it was still a soft landing. It was just so intuitive, so natural, now that I'd got the feel for it. Manipulating the charges and polarities on the fly, using the stuff of the city to change my course, soften the landings, speed me along. I was a little worried about using up all my juice before I really needed it, but this was just way too much fun.

No one noticed me land on the police station roof, just above the lot where they kept the cruisers. All I had to do was wait up here until someone took off in a rush and then I could follow along, ready to lend a helping hand.

I got the walkie-talkie out of my pants pocket and clicked the button. "Rich, I mean Houston, do you copy?"

No answer.

I put it back in my pocket and sat down on my sheet of metal. It would just be a matter of time now. To bad I didn't have a watch anymore. My old one was long since fried and I couldn't see a new one lasting very long.

After a while a car pulled out. It wasn't in any rush, but I was sick of waiting, so I followed it, bouncing over the rooftops again. I tried calling Richie, but he was probably way out of range.

The police car cruised through downtown in a rambling zig-zag pattern. They stopped to give a guy on a motorcycle directions. They stopped to talk with a homeless woman. They stopped for coffee.

This had been a dumb idea. I should have stuck with my original plan and waited for sirens and flashing lights to lead me to the trouble.

I paused on top of a grocery store, watching as the police car came to a stop at a red light. A bus pulled into the intersection, then stopped suddenly.

There was a flash of white light and the front windows of the bus blew out. The lights on the cruiser came on and they gunned it forward just as a massive, glowing white blob emerged from the mutilated bus. Balls of white light shot from the monster's hands, exploding under the cruiser and flipping it over. It skidded across the street, sparks flying.

I shook my head, realizing I was there to be a part of the action, not a spectator, even if I did have an awesome view. I jumped onto my piece of metal and launched myself off the building.

The cruiser was going way too fast—that monster must have packed quite a punch. But stopping cars was just the kind of thing Static was good at. Even before I reached the ground, I was putting the brakes on it, the same way I slowed myself down when flying. The car had a lot more momentum than I did though, and getting the timing right wasn't quite as intuitive. There was a crunch as the cruiser came to a stop gentle against the sliding glass doors of the grocery store.

By the time I looked up, the monster was gone and a fire hydrant had got its top knocked off, gushing water into the street. There were people watching now, and I felt like I had to do something impressive. I stepped off my piece of metal and rolled up my sleeves, drawing out every last drop of juice. This was gonna be a doozie, the biggest thing I'd tried to manipulate.

I focused on the metals in the car, in the pipes underground and all the metal stuff hidden inside the building. The lights inside the grocery store flickered as I levitated the cruiser, pulled it out of the store and flipped it back onto its wheels.

My vision blurred behind the goggles, but my job wasn't over yet. I took a couple nonchalant steps over to the spewing hydrant and felt around with my power. There was a valve at the base of the hydrant, made of iron or something. It was designed to shut off the water under pressure, but it still wasn't easy to manipulate without a wrench. The geyser died down to a trickle and I blinked back black spots, only half sure I was still standing upright.

"Phew." I braced my hands on my knees and breathed for a second. My vision cleared, but I was still shaky, tired. Good thing the monster had decided to run.

"Hey, kid, you okay?" a man asked.

I stood up and wiped my forehead, even though the hood had soaked up any sweat. I was kinda out of it. "Don't worry about me. Did everyone get out of the bus okay?"

Heads turned to look at the bus. Besides the busted window, it looked fine. And empty. The driver stood on the street corner, staring at me.

"Well, that's good," I said.

"Are you a bang baby?" the man asked.

I smiled. "You know it. The name's Static. Dakota's resident superhero."

 **5.4 Observer One**

Edwin Alva paused the tape. It was a collage of video clips, a mix of security footage, police cams, professional news reports and amateur shots. A binder of still photos sat on the table next to the tape box. The front page showed a dossier of sorts.

Alias: Static

Name: unknown

Age: mid-teens (?)

Physical attributes: African American, 5'6" (?), 130lbs (?), eyes unknown, hair unknown. "Uniform" consists of black pants & boots, white t-shirt with black lightning logo, blue and yellow coat with hood covering head and upper half of face. Yellow goggles. Often seen carrying 1 small handheld radio and 1 piece of salvaged metal.

Abilities: Broad spectrum electrokinesis. See page 2 for details.

M.O.: Follows police cruisers, steps in if violence or "metahumans" are involved. High regard for safety of bystanders, officers, paramedics, etc. Moderate regard for safety of public/private property, assailants. Strict non-lethal use of powers.

Suspected Motives: Fame, thrill-seeking (?)

Bio: First appearance fifteen days post "Big Bang," see photos #2-6. Subsequent sightings every 1-3 days, usually between 1500-1800 hours or 2100-2300 hours. Schedule indicates day job or student status, the latter being more likely given apparent age. Statistics of metahuman regional density indicate Lakeside High or Dakota Central Community College as most likely places of study. Further attempts to narrow down Static's identity have been hindered by a lack of information. One partial fingerprint did not return any results in the TPD database.

Static's use of a handheld radio indicates some sort of support team, alias "Houston," identity unknown, but presumed to be a civilian, potential metahuman. Lower socioeconomic status presumed for both "Houston" and Static, given the quality of Static's limited equipment.

Recommended Course of Action: Surveillance. Uncover identities of Static and Houston, level 8 confidentiality. See page 3 for details, risks assessment, long term plans.

Edwin Alva flipped through the binder, examining the densely typed dossier and blurry photos taken from any and all sources. It was a delicate situation, but Edwin would not have gotten as far as he had if he didn't know how to handle delicate situations.

 **5.5 Observer Two**

Ebon watched, unseen, as his plan unfolded. There was some inherent risk in the plot, but the benefits far outweighed anything he stood to lose.

His newest recruit, Shiv, ran down the street, pursued by the cops, and more closely by Static. Shiv's moped lay dead in the middle of the street, half a block away. If he did good here today, Ebon might retrieve it for him later.

Shiv ducked into an alley and vaulted over a fence that blocked access to a T-intersection with another alley. Bills came loose from his pockets and scattered on the ground. Behind him, Static gained some altitude and flew over the fence, but it slowed him enough that Shiv managed to round the corner and slam to a halt underneath a fire escape without Static seeing.

Static swooped through the alley, past where Shiv was hiding. Ebon heard Shiv count to three, then turn and run the other way down the alley. When it wasn't certain that Static had heard him go, Shiv transformed one glowing purple hand into a hammer and smashed a passing garbage can.

Static slowed, changed direction. He wasn't the most nimble flier, but once he got going, he could be fast. He caught up with Shiv back on the main drag, where the cops had blocked off the street.

"Give the money back," Static shouted. He was hovering on a manhole lid an inch or so off the ground. Ebon portaled into a shadow underneath a parked car for a better view of the scene. Shiv hadn't managed to evade the so-called hero long enough for the news crews to show up, but Ebon had a backup plan. D-struct stood on the corner, a camera in his hand and a pained look on his face as he held his human form together.

"Blow me," Shiv called back, his idea of witty repartee. He transformed his hands into giant scythe-claws.

"I don't wanna have to fight you," Static said, drifting closer until he was only a couple feet from Shiv.

"I ain't goin' back to prison," Shiv shouted. Ebon saw him give the side streets a shifty look. It might be a while yet before the reporters showed up.

"Then you shouldn'ta busted up that ATM!"

The cops were coming closer now too, creeping forward in their slow, crab-like gait, guns raised.

Shiv reformed one claw into the semblance of a hand, stuck it in his pocket. "Fine, take it!" He threw a handful of bills into Static's face and whipped his claw arm around the back of Static's head.

After that, everything happened in a flash. Shiv knocked Static off his manhole lid, who fell to his hands and knees on the ground. The cop furthest to the left fired his gun at Shiv, who was already making a shield out of one glowing hand. The impact sounded with a dull pop and Shiv screamed.

He still had his other claw hooked in Static's mask. The claw transformed into a rope and he dragged Static to his feet as a human shield.

"I gave it back! Now lemme go or the kid gets it!"

The cops stood down and Shiv took his opening. He shoved Static towards the cops, the kid choking and gasping, and sprinted for the alley again. Ebon sighed, made Shiv a portal back to the abandoned subway and then returned his attention to the scene of the crime.

A couple cops were already running after the long gone Shiv. In the middle of the street, Static stood with his hands braced on his knees and a woman cop stood next to him, a hand on his back.

Ebon squinted, slithered out from under the car just a little. He couldn't see very well in the bright sunlight, but it looked like Shiv had torn open Static's hood. So. It wasn't a fro he had hidden under there, but a mess of short dreadlocks.

A partial victory for Shiv then. Not enough to bother getting the moped for him, but better than nothing.

Ebon circled around, watching the handful of bystanders while keeping half an eye on Static as he recovered enough to fly away. One kid in particular caught Ebon's eye. A white kid, blonde, with a walkie-talkie hidden in his sleeve. He didn't stick around to watch the cops look for Shiv. Instead he started walking in the direction Static had gone, skipping every couple steps like he wanted to start running.

After a block or so, the blonde kid brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth. "V, you there?"

The walkie-talkie buzzed something back, but Ebon couldn't make out any words.

"Good. Meet you there. Over."

Ebon followed the blonde kid for a moment longer, taking in the salient details. Glasses, earring, faded threadbare sweatshirt. Probably fourteen or fifteen years old. He portaled to the meeting place with D-struct and took them back to the abandoned subway where his crew was waiting.

 **5.6 Candlelight Vigil**

I stuffed my costume into my backpack and walked the rest of the way to the center. I spent some time in the bathroom before meeting up with Richie again though, just to make sure my head wasn't bleeding and there weren't any major bruises.

I found him playing foosball in the big activity room and I dragged him away to a semi private corner.

"Yo, V. You okay?"

I tried to keep my voice down, but I was angry. "I'm fine. Can you believe I just let him get away like that? I had him right there."

"I know, man."

"Did the police get him?"

Richie shrugged, glanced over my shoulder like he was looking for eavesdroppers. "I dunno. Probably. I thought you got hurt, so it wasn't like I was gonna stick around after you left."

I rubbed my neck. I _had_ got hurt. "I shoulda just shocked him when he grabbed me."

Richie winced. "Yeah, maybe." He looked at his watch. "Don't forget, your dad's picking us up soon for that thing tonight. Are you powered down enough?"

I shook my head. "Let's go shoot some hoops."

Richie followed me outside and grabbed a ball from the bin as I touched the asphalt at the edge of the court, draining my batteries into the ground. It felt kinda good, like a way to vent my frustration. We played a round of PIG and went to meet Pops in the parking lot.

We ate a quick dinner at home and I lent Richie some slacks and a button-up to wear. Pops drove us to the school and we made our way to the gym.

The bleachers were pulled out like for a basketball game and the court was covered in row after row of folding chairs. Me and Pops and Richie found three seats together and waited for the first speaker to come to the podium.

The principal came on first. "Students, families, staff, I'd like to thank you for coming here tonight, to mourn with us the students and alumni of Lakeside High who have lost their lives in these recent events, pray for those are missing, and give hope and solace for those who are still among us. Not a single person here today has not been touched by the big bang and its aftershocks and I would like to begin tonight's vigil with a minute of silence for the friends and classmates no longer with us."

We bowed our heads and waited. A few sniffles went up around the room and I wondered who they were coming from. I felt vain and shallow now, guilty for having fun with my new powers and like a failure for not being able to do more to help. Was it right of me to get these guys locked up? Prison was probably the last thing they needed right now. They needed doctors and psychologists, not jumpsuits and guards.

I clenched my fists. No. They could have all gone to the hospital. Having powers or getting transformed didn't mean you had to slide into crime.

I caught Pops looking at me out of the corner of his eye and relaxed my fingers. At the podium, the principal thanked us, and went on to read a list of names. Wade was on there, and Derek and Lamar.

How was I supposed to feel about that? I'd never really liked Wade and never known Derek and Lamar hardly at all, but I still felt bad for what had happened to them. Or maybe I felt bad for not feeling bad enough? I couldn't tell.

Some parents, teachers and students came up, said a few words about each of the people on the principal's list. Pops put an arm around my shoulders. At one point, the principal called for Francis Stone to come to the podium, but he didn't show up. I wasn't surprised. I couldn't imagine him having anything nice or poignant to say.

The speeches finished, the audience filed outside to the track circuit, where the class presidents and a few volunteers were handing out candles. Me and Pops and Richie each took one and we stood in a group with Frieda and Daisy and their parents. I was a little surprised to learn that Daisy's parents were black. She must have been adopted.

"Your parents couldn't make it?" Daisy asked Richie.

He shook his head. "They had to work."

The conversation turned to the people from the principal's list, and I told a kind of true story about how Wade and his friends had got Francis to back off from beating up a freshman kid with an inhaler.

After a while the crowd dispersed and Pops drove us home.

"You're sure you don't want me to take you all the way?" Pops asked as he dropped Richie at a street corner, the first words spoken in the whole ride.

"Nah, this is fine. Thanks, Mr. H."

At home, it looked like Sharon had had her own little ceremony. There was an empty bottle of wine on the kitchen counter and Adam's shoes were by the front door. Pops put the bottle in the recycling but didn't say anything.

I went up to my room and thought again about how I was supposed to feel about all this. Could heroing be like a tribute to everyone who had died? A way of avenging them, maybe. Putting it that way made me feel better about what I was doing, less guilty for _not_ being overwhelmed with grief.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Man, action scenes are tough. Next chapter: Alva, and robots!


	6. The Offer

**6 The Offer**

The gaunt man locks the box, returns the key to its drawer. The perfect care package.

 **6.1 Field Trip**

Richie and me had decided it might be best if I took a couple days off heroing. Partly because Pops had asked me about why I wasn't coming to the center so much anymore, and partly because Richie thought it'd be good if I took the time to do some research about the bang babies I'd been fighting against, and do some more training.

"So today, patrol and then Saturday, I was thinking we could hit the sales again," Richie was saying as we waited for the bus. "I had an idea for how to boost the signal on the walkie-talkies. I just need some tools."

Mr. Decker and Mr. Lee were waiting near the bus, taking roll for the field trip. There'd been a lot of talk about canceling it, but in the end the principal had given us the go-ahead, for the sake of normalcy. And we'd already paid our fees.

There was a new exhibition at the museum called Technology in Art/Art in Technology, which was basically just a bunch of robots and paintings of robots, but it was a heck of a lot more fun than being in class.

Most the seats on the bus were full, but Daisy waved at me.

"Virgil, I saved you a seat!"

I shot Richie a grin and sat next to her as he shrugged and sat next to some random kid.

"You know you can call me V, right? Only my pops calls me Virgil." I kinda wished he'd really named me after the Roman poet. Not the Publius part, obviously, but Vergilius Maro Hawkins would have been an awesome name.

Daisy giggled and we got to talking. It turned out she'd been going to that private Vanmoor school, but a couple of the teachers were jerks to her, so her parents pulled her out and sent her to Lakeside instead.

"How do you like Lakeside?" I asked.

"Everyone's way friendlier here, at least most of the time. I was worried about it not being as safe as Vanmoor, but it's just different kinds of problems, you know? And the ones at Lakeside are easier."

I whipped a pen out of my bag. "Can I get that in writing so I can show it to my pops?"

As we got close to the museum, Mr. Lee stood up and gave everyone a preemptive warning about what would happen if we didn't behave during the trip. The bus came to a stop and we filed out. Richie nudged my elbow and pointed across the street.

On the far side of the street, a huge new office building gleamed in the sun, the word ALVA spread across half of the facade in stainless steel letters twenty feet tall.

"Whoa." That hadn't been there last time I'd been to the museum.

A few years ago, the local tech genius Edwin Alva had hit it big, doing with robots what Bill Gates had done with computers a decade or so earlier. Okay, so personal robots weren't quite as ubiquitous as personal computers, but he _did_ make the only functional cheap robots available to the market, and sold his quality stuff to people like the UN and the Justice League. And he was doing it all here in Dakota. Almost single-handedly, that man had saved the city from suffering the same fate as Detroit.

Mr. Lee and Mr. Decker herded us into the museum, a big old white stone building with Corinthian columns and a glass dome. Most of the paintings in the main hall were the same from last time I'd been there, but there were a couple new ones.

A woman in a suit and a name tag met us and told us about the exhibition. It turned out Alva had sponsored a lot of the artists, and half a dozen generations of Alva robots were on display.

Then our teachers explained our assignment—choose one robot, draw a picture of it, and describe how its form was beneficial towards its function. The class split into groups of friends and we wandered around the exhibit.

"How about this one?" Frieda asked, as we stopped in front of a robotic arm used to put doors on new cars. There was a joystick in front of the display and we took turns manipulating the arm.

"That's way too hard to draw," Omar said. "I'm gonna do the sputnik." He jerked his head towards a replica of the original satellite.

We moved along, but Richie stayed behind, looking at the arm, holding his chin. I guessed he was gonna use that one for the assignment.

I chose a little submarine robot used to find things in shipwrecks. It was mostly an oval shape with fins and a camera, so it wasn't too hard to draw. Daisy and me looked at the rest of the robots and moved on to the other exhibits with a reminder from Mr. Decker that we had to be back in the main hall in an hour.

Daisy really liked the modern art, and we had a fun time making up stuff about what the artists wanted to express with their pieces.

"You see," I said in my best fake British accent, "the _blue_ squa-uh represents the confoh-mity of society, while the _red_ squa-uh represents the rebellion of the youngeh generation. But the fact that they are both _squares_ tells us that despite the rebellion, society itself doesn't change as a form and that anything we might deem 'change' is purely superficial."

Daisy pursed her lips and nodded. "Quite right, Mr. Hawkins. Notice too how the painting itself is a square. Further proof that these generational societies are merely smaller parts of a similar, unchanging whole." We laughed at our own presumptuousness. Then she checked her watch and grabbed my hand, pulling me towards the exit. I was sad it was time to go, it had been nice just the two of us having fun.

The rest of the class was outside on the steps of the museum, eating lunch. Me and Daisy sat next to Richie, who was still working on his drawing, his PB&J forgotten next to him. I looked over his shoulder. He'd chosen a sort of spider-looking robot I didn't remember seeing.

"Dang, Rich. When'd you get so good at drawing?"

"I dunno," he said without looking up.

He was obviously in kind of a weird mood, so I left him alone.

Somehow Omar got talking about bowling, and he managed to make it sound like a way more interesting game than I'd thought.

A voice interrupted Omar's monologue. "Hey, what's that?" Some girl pointed up at the sky.

I squinted, shielded my eyes. There was definitely something up there. A black shape, kind of round-ish and lumpy.

"Is it a drone?" Daisy asked.

"I don't think so," I said. A gust of wind buffeted us, sending a few papers flying.

Richie looked up, whispered, "Oh, no." He turned to me. "Hey, V. You show me where the bathroom was?" There was something dead serious in his voice, and I could guess why.

"Yeah, man. Now that you mention it, I really gotta go too."

We ducked past Mr. Lee and headed for the men's room.

"You think it's a bang baby?" I hissed.

"Positive. You got the suit?"

"Yeah."

In the bathroom, Richie leaned his back against the door so no one could come in, and I changed into my costume as quick as I could.

"I hope you're right," I said, tucking my hair inside the hood. "'Cause if everything's cool it's gonna be real obvious when I go missing and Static shows up."

Another gust of wind buffeted the building, making the windows rattle and letting me know that everything was gonna be not cool very soon here. I pulled down my goggles and Richie offered me his fist to bump.

We air bumped and I jimmied open the window with my power. I dropped to the ground and looked for something to fly on.

There was a crash inside the museum, and Richie shouted, "Wrong way, Static!"

There was no way I'd be able to jump back up to the window, so I ran around the side of the building, picking up the grate to a storm drain on the way.

This was going to be tricky. The thing I'd learned about mag-lev was that whatever thing I was using to fly liked to run parallel to its track. If that was a horizontal train track, piece of cake. But if it was a vertical steel girder inside a building, it was kind of hard to keep my surface level with the ground. I could balance it out by exerting forces from other sources, but here that was going to be a problem. There wasn't much construction around so I didn't have a whole lot of metal to work with. Just the pipes in the ground and the stuff inside the museum building.

Wind tore at my coat as I rounded the corner. There was glass on the ground and I looked up to see a figure floating above the ruined dome of the museum. My classmates were panicking, some of them running, others rooted to the steps. The teachers and the woman from the museum were trying to enforce order, but no one could hear what they were saying over the howling wind.

I gripped the sides of my storm grate and pulled myself up the side of the building. The flying guy dove in through the busted dome and I took a moment to evaluate the situation before I went after him. I landed on a solid piece of the dome and looked down.

The flying guy, wearing a purple cape and some re-purposed skateboard safety gear, stood in the middle of the main hall, a tornado ripping the paintings off the walls around him. If there had been anyone around to hear it, I would have made a joke about the guy not being an art lover. I pushed the thought away and looked for a way to restrain the guy. Picture frames? The robots from the other exhibit?

The picture frames were probably wood or plastic, and the robots were outside my range. I didn't have a whole lot at my disposal, just myself and my storm grate.

So of course I did the only logical thing. I jumped on him.

It was about a two story drop, but I used the power of magnets to slow myself down and the wind guy was a pretty big, soft target. Maybe that was why he flew so well. Round is an aerodynamic shape. The tornado died almost instantly.

I rolled off him and made sure he was still alive before I gave him my line.

"Sorry for dropping in on you like this. I'll try to call first next time."

Wind guy coughed and tried to get up. A little bit of applied static electricity on his cape and he was all tangled up. Just to be safe, I gave him a little zap. Just enough to make him jump. He groaned and went limp.

"Yo, security guards! I got the jump on him!"

The museum guards came running, mouths open in surprise. Since it had kind of become my thing, I introduced myself as Dakota's resident superhero and gave them a salute.

One of the guards busted out the cuffs while the other one called the real police. It looked like they had everything under control, so I slipped away and ran back to the bathroom. Richie was still hiding out in there, leaning against the door.

"Got him," I said, and Richie grunted in response.

I stuffed my costume into the bottom of my backpack and headed for the door. "Let's go."

Richie was still propped against the door, but it looked like he was using it to stay upright more than anything. One hand covered his face.

"Richie?"

He lowered his hand, blinked. "Sorry. Headache."

Mr. Decker met us in the hallway and we played innocent, asking what had happened and if everyone was okay. He seemed so relieved to find us that he didn't question our bad acting for a second. 

**6.1.1 Press Release**

The cameraman panned past the Alva Industries building and trained his sights on the owner of the company as he stood next to Shelly Sandoval outside the partially ruined museum.

"Static is a shining example of the Dakota I want to live in," Alva said. "He's taking on a responsibility that no one asked him to and I want to be the first to thank him beyond mere words." He turned to face the camera head on. "Static, consider this a thank-you gift on behalf of my company and my neighborhood." He held up a white lockbox about the size of a microwave. "I'll leave it for you at the DPD headquarters."

A police officer stepped in on cue and took the box. 

**6.2 Thank You Gift**

"We X-rayed it, ran it past the dogs and the bomb squad, checked it for radiation, anthrax..."

I was in a meeting room in the Dakota Police Department with a handful of senior officers and experts. A white box sat on the table, glossy white with chrome edging on the corners and a black handle on top. It had a lock on it, but no key, according to the officers who had received it. They probably could have forced it open, but given that it was a gift from the hands of known philanthropist Edwin Alva, I got the honor.

It was my present, after all.

I tapped the top of the box with one gloved knuckle. It was kind of hard to tell through the metal, but it felt like electronics inside.

"Twenty bucks says it's a robot," I said.

"Or Alva stock," one of the officers suggested. "You can never start investing too early."

I reached into the lock with my power. I'd never tried opening a lock like this before, and didn't know if I could do it. The mechanism inside was tiny, delicate. But clearly Alva had expected me to be able to open it. That was a vote of confidence I appreciated.

After a minute I still didn't have it, and I had to sit down and remind myself to breathe. I took off one glove, pressed my thumb against the lock and closed my eyes. I could feel all the little moving pieces and had a basic understanding of how keys were supposed to work. Some trial and error and the box opened with a less than satisfying click.

I glanced at the waiting officers and opened up the box. No robot.

On top was a black vest with a yellow lightning bolt like the one I'd painted on my t-shirt, this one more curved so it looked like an S. Why hadn't I thought of that? I picked it up and was heavier than I was expecting. It wasn't metal though, but layers of cloth with something tough in between.

"No way. Is this kevlar?"

One of the officers reached over to feel the cloth. "Could be."

I set the vest aside and took out an envelope with another lightning S printed on it. There was a note inside and a credit card. I read the note out loud.

 _Dear Static, Dakota's resident tech magnate would like to thank Dakota's resident superhero for his exemplary efforts to combat the recent chaos in our city. The world needs more young people like you._

 _Within my own company, I try to foster the desire to make the world a better, safer place. You have this desire. I would much appreciate it if you were to stop by the AI main office so you and I can discuss the possibility of your sponsorship._

 _Of course, I can understand why you might be hesitant about entering into any sort of binding agreement. My offer is purely that: an offer that I believe to be mutually beneficial._

 _The contents of this box are a gift, nothing more. A thank you for the services you have rendered with no strings or obligations attached. Inside, you should find a few essentials any vigilante might want. I'm sorry if you now have duplicates of any of the enclosed items—I have included receipts so you can return them if you wish._

 _The contents are as follows: 1 body armor vest, 1 pair polarized shatter-proof goggles, 1 piece of magnetized steel, 1 radio scanner and accompanying manual, and 1 debit card linked to a DPCU account with one thousand dollars ($1,000) in it. Not much, but it should cover your operating costs for a while._

 _I hope to hear from you soon, or at the very least, see you back in action doing what you do best._

 _Yours, E. Alva._

I looked at the plastic card. A thousand bucks. I'd never had so much money in my life. That was like a hundred pizzas. Or fifty nice pairs of kicks. Or half a junky car.

The rest of the lockbox held exactly what Alva said it would. A sort of extra complicated radio, a piece of metal that folded up into a square and some goggles.

"So, do I get to keep it?"

The officers looked at each other. It was the scanner that they were hung up on, I bet. They probably didn't like the idea of an untrained kid like me going full vigilante. What if I hurt myself, or someone else?

The chief of police sighed. "It's your stuff, kid."

I couldn't help but smile. I tossed everything but the steel plate back in the box and headed out.

Richie was waiting for me back at the gas station. I landed a couple blocks away, changed into my street clothes and walked the rest of the way. Too bad a thousand bucks wouldn't be enough to build a secret entrance or a swanky batcave hideout.

"How'd it go?" Richie asked, not bothering to get up. He had a fat library book open in his lap, already halfway finished.

"It's like it's my birthday." I put the box on the table and opened it up for him.

Richie put down the book and went through the stuff.

"Whoa, no way!" He picked up the police scanner. "This is exactly what I was thinking we should get."

I tried on the new goggles. The lenses were way bigger than my old swim goggles and the blue tint was sweet. "That's not even the best part." I showed him the envelope.

Richie didn't grin and freak out at the enormous sum though. He frowned as he read, chewed on his lip.

"You gonna do it?" he asked. "Let Alva sponsor you?"

I pulled the goggles down around my neck. "Oh. I haven't thought about it yet." I hadn't even considered taking him up on the deal. I was just a kid, I'd never signed a contract in my life. I didn't know how to do that kind of stuff.

Richie's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Dude, he wants you to enter into some kind of legally binding contract. And you're not a lawyer. If you're thinking about doing this, you gotta be super careful."

"Yeah, I know. It's not like I'm gonna let him in on my secret identity or anything." I'd been careful so far.

Richie pushed up his glasses. "Yeah, there's that, but what we really gotta think about is what Alva wants outta this."

"Publicity?" I suggested. I really hadn't thought about why Alva wanted to have me sign a contract. "I'm already kinda famous."

"You mean Static is famous."

I shrugged. What was the difference?

Richie continued. "Besides, there's more famouser people he could hire to make ads or whatever."

"Why else would he want to hire me? I mean, other than wanting to keep the city safe? He already donated a bunch of drones to the police. How's this any different?" I adjusted the goggles on my head.

"I dunno. Maybe he wants to hook you up to a generator to power his factory. Or just dictate the kind of stuff you're allowed to do."

"Huh." I didn't think Alva wanted to hook me up to a generator, but Richie had me thinking. Why _did_ Alva want me to make a deal with him? I honestly couldn't think of anything beyond publicity or pure civic-mindedness, but he could have an ulterior motive.

I sat down in one of the lawn chairs and dug a notebook out of the milk crate. "What do we know about Alva, besides that he builds robots and makes donations to museums and superheroes?"

Richie relaxed, like he was glad I was taking this seriously. "Well, it's not just robots. He's also got the bionics stuff. Remember a couple years ago, when all those soldiers were coming back from the Balkans?"

"Right." With some help from the government, Alva had developed some really impressive prosthetics that connected right to a person's nervous system. Some people thought this was way cool, how he'd been able to help all those veterans and people who'd gotten in accidents, but a lot of people were scared too. Scared that hackers might be able to remote control people through their bionic parts, or that Alva or somebody would make some seriously dangerous weaponized fake arms.

Because of the backlash and drop in demand, Alva's bionics department had scaled down since the end of the Balkans conflict, but it was still around.

I didn't see why Alva might want me involved in that though.

"Does he do any charity?" I asked.

"Yeah. Mostly like scholarships, I think. You remember that genius girl Alicia who graduated last year? She got a full ride to MIT thanks to him."

"Whoa." Suddenly a thousand bucks didn't seem like all that much. "I guess this is kinda like that. Too bad he couldn't get me an internship with Batman."

Richie snorted. We sat for a minute, trying to think of other things Alva was involved with. I don't think either of us knew much about the guy.

"I think I'm gonna go see him," I said. "Not to sign anything, just to see if I can figure out what he wants." After thinking about it for a minute, I was curious.

Richie made a sour face. "I had a feeling you'd say that. Just... be careful, okay?" 

**6.3 Firefight**

I decided to give it a few days before I paid Edwin Alva a visit. In the meantime, Me and Richie did some research so I could be as prepared as possible for the encounter. We learned a lot about robots and the general outlines of Alva's life.

Alva had been born in 1948 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He'd almost finished a couple of degrees at two different colleges (engineering and business), spent a few years in Detroit working for GM, where he met his wife, Melissa Sather. They'd gotten married, had a kid and then got divorced not too long after Alva quit GM and started his own company here in Dakota. A few years later he got successful. His first big sell was the "seeker-stopper," a bot designed to find and dig up landmines without detonating them.

These days, he made just about any kind of robot you could want. From surveillance drones to androids that could play checkers with your kids and mechanical chauffeurs who could drive your car. In countries where that was legal.

I wondered if Batman had a deal with Alva, but then I figured Waynetech was probably his go-to for gear. You gotta support local business, I guess.

At the moment me and Richie were hanging out in the Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude, me fiddling with the scanner and Richie pretending to read but actually dozing with a book on his face. We'd done all the research we wanted to do, but I was still going to wait until tomorrow before confronting Alva. Right now I was on hero duty.

All of a sudden the scanner crackled to life. The message was fuzzy, thanks to me being fully charged and sitting near the receiver, but I picked up the word "metahuman" and an address, no problem.

Richie looked up at me from the used couch we'd just bought. "Heading out?"

"Yup." I checked my backpack to make sure I had all the parts to my costume while Richie got to his feet and strode over to the giant map of the city pinned to one wall. Another recent purchase.

Richie pointed out an intersection in a residential neighborhood, Southside, near the lake.

"Lemme know if anything new comes up on the scanner," I said and went around to the junkyard for a place to change. Soon enough, I was cruising down the train tracks like they were my own private highway.

I got to the site of the crime about the same time the cops did. A fire truck was already there, firefighters setting up hoses and foam sprayers to combat a house fire.

I came to a stop next to one of the officers. A white guy, middle aged. "Who's the bang baby?"

"Hotstreak," the officer said, pointing at the burning house.

The house was practically a mansion, white with green trim and big bay windows that were currently spewing smoke and flames into the air. A literal wall of fire across the front lawn blocked the firefighters' path. Francis Stone stood between the wall and the house, his back to the firefighters and police. His hair had grown back since I'd last seen him, and even through the heat haze I could see that it had come back an unnatural color—stop sign red with spots of yellowy-orange.

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. I'd known Francis had been doing bad stuff and that if I really did want to call myself a hero, I'd have to face him eventually. But, would he recognize me? I had the hood and the mask, but I couldn't change my height or my voice or the color of my skin.

Maybe I could take him down like I'd done with the wind guy—get the jump on him, surprise him. I reached out with my power, a low, broad pulse to feel out what kinds of materials I had on hand. Pipes and electrical wiring in the ground and in the houses, street lights, cars... I pushed a little further and my mouth dropped open.

"There's someone in the house!" It was hard to tell, but I was pretty certain.

"How— Never mind," the officer next to me said, and started shouting at the firefighters. But there wasn't anything they could do from where they were. Hotstreak had them blocked off.

I zoomed over to the fire truck, appropriated an extinguisher and took off again, as high as I could go. The heat was awful, creating a wind that threatened to blow me off my steel plate. And then I was past it, on the far side of the house. I landed hard on the back lawn and reached out again to feel for that little electrical hum that indicated a living creature.

There, on the second floor, third window from the left.

I launched myself at the window, spraying foam even before I got there. Someone was screaming inside, a high, inhuman sound.

I flew in through the broken window, crouching low on my plate. There were no open flames, but the room was full of smoke and unbearably hot. My flight wavered as some other part of the house collapsed.

The source of the screaming wasn't a person though, but a dog, a big one. It shied away from me, crying. It wasn't going to understand that I was there to help and I was going to need to pick it up, and I didn't want to get bitten. So I gave it a shock, enough to knock it out, and tried not to feel bad about it.

The dog was heavy. Not as much as a grown man, but still over a hundred pounds. I managed to get it onto my lap, and flew out half sitting, half crouching on my plate. I set it down in the far corner of the back yard and tried to catch my breath.

I closed my eyes. There was a water main running under the back yard, but I didn't have the leverage to unearth it and split it open. I did however have power over all the faucets in the area. Sinks, showers, bathtubs, garden hoses, they all came to life at my command. It wasn't much, but it had to help. Right?

I picked up the dog, with a better grip this time and returned to the firefighters. They took it and I launched myself skyward again, floating a few feet above the top of the fire truck.

Hotstreak looked up at me, pointed. A moment later, a wave of heat blasted through me, like I'd opened an industrial sized oven and stuck my whole body inside. I dropped to the roof of the truck and the heat dissipated.

So, Hotstreak's power wasn't really making fire. He had power over heat, which just caused a lot of fire. My clothes and skin were okay, but uncomfortable. He hit me with another blast and the discomfort redoubled. I jumped down and hid behind the far side of the truck. Too much more exposure and I _wouldn't_ be okay.

Maybe this was my game though. Keep him focused on me, so the firefighters and the cops could get close enough to take him down. I summoned a trash can lid for a shield and popped up above the truck again, like a mole from whack-a-mole.

My shield worked, absorbing most of the heat. That meant Hotstreak was firing a beam, not choosing a specific point to heat with his mind. That was good. I could block and dodge a beam better than I could anticipate Hotstreak's thoughts.

I maneuvered myself closer, cruising around to one side of the property like I was trying to find a way to get to him. Pain seared through my legs as Hotstreak hit me with where I wasn't protected by the lid. I lost my balance and dropped behind the high wooden fence that surrounded the yard. Then I was back on my feet.

I needed a plan. I couldn't jump on him like I had with the wind guy, but maybe I could hit him with something? At my command, a satellite dish came loose from the house behind me.

On the other side of the fence, the firefighters were still spraying their hoses at Hotstreak's wall of fire. I couldn't tell if they were making any progress.

I ran back to the fire truck, my legs sticky and painful. I came to a stop behind a police car, noticing for the first time a strange wind pulling towards the burning house. All that heated air had to go somewhere. That gave me an idea, better than the one to drop a satellite dish on him.

"Yo!" I shouted over the sound of the wind and waved an officer over. "You got any pepper spray?"

"I do," the officer said, putting a hand to his belt as he ducked down beside me.

I took a peek through the windows of the car. My convertible top was on fire now, so I gave up on that distraction and threw it at him. I couldn't see Hotstreak from where I was, but I kinda could feel his little electrical hum. I think I missed.

"Please tell me they've got metal canisters."

The officer pulled out his can of spray. I could make it work.

"Right," I said, wincing as I changed position. "If you can get me four or five of these, I can spray him from close up without anyone actually getting close. The wind should pull all the spray towards him, even if I can't get a direct hit."

The officer spoke into his radio and a couple of his friends came running over.

"Choppers are almost here, but if you can take him down before then..." the officer said, glancing at the mayhem.

I nodded and took the cans of spray from the officers then got back onto my plate so I could line up my shot. Each can had a button on top to release the spray, and I could mash two cans together to hit their buttons. Or they'd explode from the heat. Either way.

A series of pulses got the cans flying not quite as fast as bullets, but pretty fast. They disappeared into the flames. A moment later, the wall of fire turned into an inferno. The wind howled, almost blotting out the sound of the helicopters overhead. The giant bags of water beneath them swung wildly as the helicopters fought to stay on course.

 _Note to self. Don't pepper spray Francis._

And then the deluge hit. Clouds of steam boiled up, lake water poured down and still the firefighters battled on. It was impressive. I was exhausted and all I'd done was fly around and throw stuff for a couple minutes. They'd been handling fire hoses in hundred-pound suits.

"You okay?" A paramedic approached me and I realized I was leaning my elbows on my plate, watching the scene with my mouth open.

I shook my head. "Yeah." I stood up straight and remembered the pain in my legs. "Kinda."

The paramedic pulled me aside, had me sit on the lawn of the house across the street. I rolled up my pants. Pea-sized blisters dotted my shins. A bunch had popped, leaving raw, painful spots.

"That was some pretty risky stuff you pulled," the paramedic said as he daubed ointment on the popped blisters. "How's your insurance?"

"Umm." I was covered on my pops' plan, but Static... he had nothing to do with Robert Hawkins.

The paramedic rolled his eyes. "You _should_ get a follow up, but at the very least tell me that you'll put antiseptic on these after they pop."

"I took a first aid class," I told him.

"If you plan on keeping this up, take a refresher." 

**6.4 Contract**

I waited in the lobby for Edwin Alva to come down and meet me. A pair of receptionists manned the desk, both of them way too professional to be impressed with a real live superhero. Some bland paintings of the Dakota skyline hung on the walls and I checked them out while I waited.

Alva showed up a couple minutes later in a crisp suit with a tie striped in blue, yellow and black. I wondered if he'd done that on purpose—chosen a tie with my colors on it to subliminally tell me that he was on my side.

"Nice tie," I said as he reached to shake my hand.

Alva laughed. "I dress to impress. Let's go up to my office, shall we?" The elevator opened at his touch and we rode up as smooth as a dream.

"I hear you rescued a puppy from a burning building," Alva said with a smile. Seeing him up close, he was older than I'd thought. I mean, I knew he was born in '48, but he looked older than that. His hair was gray and balding, and his skin was saggy, with those big discolored spots kinda like freckles that old people get, especially old white people.

"A puppy? It was a great dane, man. Like Scooby-doo sized."

"I also heard that none of the firemen knew it was there, but you went right after it."

I shrugged. "Hero stuff." I'd talked about it with Richie, and we'd decided that I shouldn't give Alva any information about myself, even as Static. My powers, my hideout, nothing.

Alva laughed again, like I'd said something actually witty. For some reason, this put me in mind of that date I'd gone on with Frieda a few months ago. There'd been a lot of weird laughs and awkward silences then too.

The elevator came to a stop, so smooth I would have thought we were still moving if the doors hadn't opened. Right into Alva's office.

I tried hard to hide just how impressed I was. The view looked out on the museum and a grassy park with a pond and geese and kids playing frisbee. A latest generation android stood near the door, all white plastic and glass. The furniture matched the robot, all of it classy and elegant. I could imagine Alva saying to the decorator, "Space age, but chic. Sci-fi, but real life. Practical. Here's a gazillion dollars."

"Have a seat." Rather than him sit behind the desk and me in front of it like meeting with the guidance councilor, Alva gestured towards two egg shaped chairs facing each other next to the window with a small table in between. From this angle I could see the Dakota skyline, not too much different from the paintings downstairs.

"So, what's the deal?"

Alva held up his hand and the robot glided over to hand him a binder. I spent a moment trying to figure out how he'd programmed it to know what to do, then let it go. Alva robots were practically magic.

"What I'm offering is financial and legal support, in exchange for your continued heroism."

"And that's it?" I didn't mean to be rude, but Alva's pleasant face faded a little, got more serious.

He set the binder on the table, opening it to the tab _Obligations_. I gave it a glance while he spoke.

"There are two main sub-duties I would like for you to perform. The first requires you to behave as a spokesman of Alva Industries. This might mean attending press releases, promoting Alva products and attending social functions. Being a face of the company, essentially. Only when convenient to you, of course.

"The second would be to protect Alva assets within the city. Offices, factories, off-site storage-"

"So, like a security guard."

"More like a reserve and a deterrent. I would give you a special pager which you would keep near or on your person at all times so, in the case of a direct metahuman attack on my company's assets, I could contact you. This would be only for company assets, not my personal property."

I glanced up and saw him giving me a hard, icy look.

"My investors have been pressuring me to move our manufacturing to China or India for years now, but I would rather not abandon my city. If the safety of my employees and facilities comes into risk, I won't be able to justify staying in Dakota. I don't think I'd want to either."

I nodded. If Alva wasn't the number one employer in the city, he had to be in the top five. That would mean a whole lot of people out of work if he was forced to leave.

"And what'd I be getting?"

Alva flipped to the tab labeled _Compensation_. Richie and me had looked up what police officers, firefighters and other emergency services people made, but the number listed next to _annual salary_ made me choke. There was no way what I was doing was worth this much money. This was more than my pops made.

"You possess an extremely rare skill set. The League doesn't release their associates' salaries, but I imagine this is comparable to an entry level or sidekick pay scale."

I regained my composure and asked my next question. "Insurance?"

Alva turned the page for me, this one full of small print. "Full coverage, with room to add family members, significant others and sidekicks. There is however only so much any doctor can do without knowing your medical history or seeing your face. I'm not asking you to divulge your secret identity to me, but for safety reasons, I hope you can furnish that information to a doctor of your choosing." He flipped to the tab _Medical_ , which was a lot thicker than any other section in the binder except _Legal_.

I read a few sentences and looked back up at Alva. "It's a lot to digest. I can take this home, right?"

Alva smiled. "I wouldn't expect you to sign anything now! Go home, consult a lawyer. I'll cover that cost, no matter if you take the offer or not."

I nodded. The whole thing was starting to feel a little sketch to me. Kind of like Wade standing up to Francis for me, Alva was going way too far out of his way to get me on his good side. But what did he want from me? Just to protect his company from bang babies?

If that was it, then maybe he had a reason for thinking they were going to come after him. He _did_ make some weaponized robots. Could that be it? Trying to keep those out of the hands of bang babies? I pictured Francis standing in front of his own robot army, laughing maniacally.

I closed the binder. "I'll find a lawyer."

Alva walked me back down to the lobby and we made small talk about March Madness.

* * *

 **Author's note** :

Ugh, that fight scene! Virgil's scared of Francis and doesn't really know what he's doing yet, so I guess that's my excuse. At least it's making him consider Alva's offer. Next chapter we catch up with Richie and Francis and some other folks!

Oh, and I changed the name of the city back to Dakota, like in the original cartoon. I'll probably go back and update previous chapters once I figure out how to do that :) 


	7. Adjustments

**7 Adjustments**

Frank, or Fade as his friends have taken to calling him, wanders the city, bored. If only real life was more like the movies, full of action and high-stakes adventure.

 **7.1 On the Boat**

Francis came back to the boat smoky and on edge. Dakota's resident superhero had been something of a joke, but the cops knew what they were doing. They'd doused him with forest fire helicopters again, tased him and locked him in a holding cell under guard.

The cell had been a special one, with PVC pipes rigged up to drip water on him and the guard had been armed not with a gun, but a fire extinguisher.

But in the end, it was still just a police holding cell, not the one with the steel doors from before.

It had taken a while, but Francis had eventually managed to break out, causing a whole lot of mayhem in the process. He didn't think he'd killed anyone, but it was hard to say. Served them right if he had, distracting him from his mission.

 _"I don't think this is working,"_ Maria said as he locked the hatch behind him.

"You think?" He'd been at it for like a week now, trying to get picked up again by the guys with the steel doors and the chill pills. But every time, it was only the cops or the firemen who came after him. He was out about three hundred bucks' worth of clothes and shoes too.

 _"You don't remember the place they took you?"_

"I told you, they drugged me up, it's all a haze."

Maria didn't say anything, but the pressure in the air, the stillness, was still there, so Francis knew she hadn't left. It was awful the way she was there, and yet not there. They could talk, but that was about it. He couldn't hold her or see her face because the gas had turned her into some kind of invisible, intangible thing.

She wasn't a ghost, because that would mean she was dead, which she wasn't. Francis refused to believe it and regretted those words coming out of his mouth.

He just needed to find the fake cops or the gas makers and make them fix both of them. Maria especially, but him too. If he ever wanted to hold her again without the risk of burning her alive, he needed someone to make the fire go away. A pretty small loss if he got to get his girl back.

"I'll try the hospital tomorrow." 

**7.2 Migraine**

The headaches were getting worse. Richie had gone to the school nurse and she'd taken his temperature and given him an eye test, but he wasn't sick and he didn't need new glasses.

"Is there anything stressing you out at home or at school?" she had asked.

Of course Richie had said no. But he was stressed, by the stuff with Virgil and by the headaches. If it was just because of stress, it was a pretty bad catch twenty-two. Stress causes headaches, headaches cause stress. Repeat ad nauseam.

He wasn't sure the nurse had believed him, as she told him that he should probably go see a doctor after school.

Now, Richie was lying on a couch in the rec center with a book on electrical circuitry over his face. He'd only managed to read a couple chapters before the headache came on, like someone was driving wedges into his brain.

He didn't want to bother his parents about taking him to the doctor. If he was fine, his dad would call him a sissy and a hypochondriac, and if anything really was the matter, he would still have to face a huge guilt trip over how much going to the doctor cost.

Richie had learned by now that when his parents complained about money, they weren't necessarily angry with him, but it still _felt_ like they were. That was why he did stuff like mow neighbors' lawns or babysit their kids—so he didn't have to ask his parents for money so he could go on field trips or eat at Burger Fool with his friends.

The headache was abating, so Richie peeked out from under his book. The world was still too bright and noisy for comfort, but it was bearable. He sat up and put his glasses on, surprised to find Mr. Hawkins standing in front of him.

"Morning," he said.

Richie rubbed at his eye. "Hey, Mr. H."

"Are you okay?" Mr. Hawkins asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He didn't want to make Mr. Hawkins worry.

"What're you reading?" He pulled a chair over to sit next to Richie.

Richie looked at the book. "Electronic Circuits."

"Ooph. That sounds like it's beyond me."

"Nah. It's not too bad." Richie tried to smile, but it felt fake.

"How's school?"

"Pretty good," Richie said, then remembered his manners and actually made some conversation. "I aced my last math test and we've been learning all this stuff about robots in technology class. Did Virgil tell you about the trip to the museum?"

"He told me about the incident with Slipstream." He didn't sound very happy about it and for a panicked second Richie wondered if Mr. Hawkins had figured out about Virgil's new pastime, and if he knew, did he know that Richie knew?

But no, Virgil would have told him if his dad had found out. Probably. It was more likely Mr. Hawkins was just upset that his son had been in a dangerous situation at all.

"Yeah, well before that we got to see this really neat exhibit about robots. The assignment was to write up something about form and function, which got me thinking, what's the point in androids? They aren't good for much, and it's really hard to get them to balance and stuff. Even if the main computer is remote, it still takes up way too much processing power to have them walk on two legs. Anything an android could do, a robot on wheels could probably do better.

"But then I realized the point of an android isn't really to have it do tasks well, it's to make something that looks like a person. 'Cause if it looks like a person, it has to be friendly right? And it's just less weird if something that looks like a person is doing smart stuff like talking or playing games."

Mr. Hawkins closed his eyes and nodded. "You're probably right. Are you thinking about building your own robot?" he asked, indicating the book.

"Yeah, maybe. It's just kinda fun to think about, you know? I dunno where I could get the stuff to actually build one." That wasn't totally true. The main problem was a lack of funds.

"You know, Vanmoor High School has a robotics club. I bet if you talked with the principal and the technology teacher, you could get one started at Lakeside too."

"Oh, yeah?" Richie hadn't thought of that. He'd been too busy designing robots in his head to seriously consider _making_ one.

"Mm-hmm. So, is this what you and Virgil have been up to lately? Designing robots?"

Richie laughed, nervous. Mr. Hawkins might have been busy, but he was observant. He knew the names and histories of everyone who came to the center, followed news and politics and seemed to have an educated opinion on just about everything. There was no way he'd not noticed something was up with Virgil.

"Yeah, Mr. Decker's been letting us use the computer lab and stuff," Richie said, half implying that this was where he and Virgil had been spending their afternoons.

"That's good to hear." Mr. Hawkins got to his feet. "If you see Virgil, tell him dinner's at six. You're invited too, if you're not busy."

"Will do. Thanks, Mr. H."

Virgil's dad went back to work, and Richie returned to his book, wondering in the back of his mind where Virgil was. How long did it take to have a meeting with a lawyer?

Richie finished his book and walked back to the gas station on autopilot, thinking about the walkie-talkies. He had an idea for a way to boost their signal _and_ get them to pick up a broader range of frequencies. That way, they could pick up police broadcasts while they were out and about. He'd have to cannibalize the police scanner, but that wouldn't be a problem once the improved walkie-talkies were working.

At the gas station, Richie got to work, humming to himself, his headache and stress long forgotten. Building things was a lot of fun, and he wondered why he hadn't started doing stuff like this before now. 

**7.3 The Boyfriend**

Robert went home, expecting an empty house. Sharon had class, Virgil was God knew where, and Richie hadn't sounded like he was going to take up Robert's offer, even though he knew he was always welcome, whether Virgil was there or not. Robert hoped Richie was doing okay—he'd sounded stressed and distracted when Robert had talked with him earlier.

Robert didn't like to assume the worst, but he suspected that whatever was bothering Richie had something to do with Virgil. Hopefully they weren't getting into any trouble, but the way things were going these days... Tomorrow. He'd confront Virgil about it tomorrow. Right now he needed a little relax time.

He opened the door to the kitchen, wondering what to make for dinner, and found Sharon's boyfriend sitting with his head on the kitchen table. One of Robert's beers sat next to him, half empty and the rest of the pack sat empty in the sink. Never mind relax time.

"Adam?"

The young man sat up with a start. It looked like he'd been crying. The kid had some strong emotional barriers. Something big must have happened.

"There's better ways to deal with things," Robert said. He sat next to Adam, waited quietly for the kid to respond. Everyone opened up at their own pace, and Robert knew how to be patient.

"Sorry," Adam said, looking at the bottle. "Sharon said it'd probably be okay."

"You're twenty-one. I don't mind. Though I might if this became a regular habit."

"I know. I just had to get out of my head, you know?"

The kid was begging for a listening ear, and Robert gave it to him. "What's eating you up?"

Adam didn't respond right away, scared or embarrassed maybe.

"You remember Ivan?"

"I do," Robert said, keeping his voice perfectly calm without the slightest tone of judgment. Ivan was Adam's brother, a gang banger and druggie. He was the one who had pulled Adam into crime, introduced him to alcohol before he was mature enough to drink responsibly. Robert had never met the man, but he'd heard enough to know the type, understand Adam's relationship with him.

"He died." Adam took a drink and didn't say anything more. That certainly explained a lot. Why Adam and Sharon had been spending so much time together, why Adam had been so quiet and closed off.

"I'm so sorry. Can I ask when?"

"Like three weeks ago? I keep thinking I'm over it, I'm gonna be okay, and then the next minute it's all I can do not to fall apart."

"You're allowed to fall apart," Robert said, but Adam shook his head. "Three weeks isn't much time," Robert continued. "After Sharon's mom died, it was months and months before I could even say her name without breaking down." A sinking feeling settled in Robert's stomach. _Like three weeks ago_ corresponded with the day of the big bang. It was likely Ivan had died from that, and it was a horrible way to go.

Adam glanced at him then returned to staring at the table. "Sharon told me about that," he said after a while.

"Do you want to tell me about what happened?" Robert asked, digging deep for the patience to deal with this right now. He'd had a tough day, but Adam's had been tougher and he had less strength and knowledge to help him deal with it.

Adam finished off the last of the beer and the words started spilling out. "He died, right in my arms. He was there at the big bang and he came straight to me, like I could fix it. But there was nothing I could do, you know? He just melted and now I'm scared what's gonna happen to me. It's just like all that other junk he laid on me, passing his problems down the line, only now he's dead and I can't make him man up and deal with it. I can't even be mad at him, 'cause then I'm like this horrible person, you know?" Adam was sitting up straight now, fists clenched on the table, his narrow face strained.

"Then be mad. You have a right to be angry. Just as long as you don't hurt anybody."

Adam pushed himself away from the table, got up, rubbed his temples with his fingers. "That's what Sharon said, but if that's true, why do I still feel so bad? I can't hate him, he's my brother."

As a younger man, Robert might have pointed out the fact that Adam had good reason to hate Ivan, that he might even be better off without Ivan in his life, but he had learned some tact since then, learned to understand what someone _wanted_ to hear versus what they _needed_ to hear. Right now, Adam wanted someone to validate his guilt, but he needed to come to terms with it and accept it, which would take time.

"I'm sorry," Robert said. "There's a grief counselor at the center who might be able to help you figure that out. But maybe I can help with your other problems."

Adam looked at him, his hand half covering his face. "Sharon... she didn't tell you, did she?"

"No, but if it's something I should know..."

Adam shook his head. "No, I mean, maybe. I don't even know." He paused, working up the courage. "Ivan gave it to me. The big bang disease. I don't _think_ I'm gonna die like he did, but-"

"You're a bang baby?" Robert asked, unable to stop himself. He'd been in touch with the doctors at North Dakota Hospital and they hadn't had a single instance of a patient with metahuman symptoms who hadn't been exposed at the site of leak.

Adam took his hand off his face, looked at it. "I guess so." A look of distant concentration spread across the young man's face and his hand _stretched_. His skin turned shiny, black, like smooth plastic.

From the other room, the front door opened with a click and Virgil called out, "Hey, Pops! I'm home!" Adam started, snapping back into shape.

Robert gave Adam a pat on the shoulder and went out into the living room. "Virgil. Would you mind going down to the Hard Wok and picking up something for dinner?" He got out his wallet and handed twenty bucks to his son. Adam was still emotionally vulnerable, and Virgil wasn't the most tactful teen. 

**7.3.1 Chinese Take Out**

I took the money and left through the front door. I'd actually come in through my bedroom window a minute or so earlier, just in time to hear Pops ask Adam, "You're a bang baby?"

Maybe I was reading too much into things, but to me, Pops had sounded disappointed, resigned. Not like he was going to give up on Adam, but like his respect for him took a hit it wasn't ever going to recover from. And Pops _did_ have respect for Adam. He'd quit binging and was making it as a musician.

I walked along to the Chinese place down the street, wondering what Adam's powers were and hoping he'd keep his head down like he'd been doing. I didn't want to have to fight him any more than I wanted to fight Francis. 

**7.4 Metabreed**

Ebon was disappointed. Finding followers had turned out to be more difficult than he had expected, finding competent followers doubly so. As of right now, he had three. Shiv, Talon and D-struct. Shiv was a space case, Talon was prone to fits of crying and D-struct spent most of his time struggling to hold onto his human form, even though Ebon kept telling him it was a waste of time and effort.

Money and materials weren't a problem. It all came down to manpower.

Ebon had known for a while now that other metahumans were using the abandoned subway lines as a refuge. After a few days of spying on them, the time had come to force them to join him or leave and face the humans above. He would give them the same terms he'd given to the first three. Give up their old names, cut any remaining ties with human friends and family and obey his word as law in exchange for wealth, comfort and a piece of the city once it was his.

He selected his prey and brought him into his headquarters. The three had erected a shack in the middle of an abandoned platform, wired to a mobile generator and lit with Christmas lights. A VW van next to it served as Ebon's private room.

A portal appeared inside the shack and Ebon drew forth a young man who at first glance looked like a regular human, but under bright light proved to be semitransparent, as did his clothes and anything he held onto for more than a few minutes. He'd chosen a new name for himself already, but he still used the old one.

"Fade," Ebon said, coalescing before the frightened young man. He had chosen him first, since he would be the most difficult to contain.

"Who're you? Where am I?" He squinted and shook his head, disoriented.

"My name is Ebon, and we are the Metabreed." He gestured at the original three, waiting off to one side. "I'm here to make you an offer."

Fade looked around, taking in the shack, Ebon and the members of his gang. A cool, unconcerned look spread across his face. "What kind of offer?"

"Join me."

Fade crossed his arms, seemingly unimpressed. "And?" he asked, in a bored voice. His face betrayed him though. He was interested.

"And embrace what you have become. Accept your rightful place as a ruler over lesser beings. Join me and in time you will receive everything you've dreamed of having."

"A shed in a subway tunnel," Fade said with scorn.

Ebon shook his head. "This is only be beginning. I need your help, Fade, to make our right a reality."

"Well, thanks, but no thanks," Fade said, and sidestepped through the wall of the shack.

Ebon held up three fingers and counted down to zero in silence before opening another portal directly beneath Fade's feet and shunting him back into the shack.

"Allow me to clarify," he said once Fade was on his feet again. "I am conquering this city, and this territory is mine. Join me now and be my equal, or leave the subways and join the humans."

Fade winced. Ebon knew that Fade's powers were in a way similar to his own. Bright light pained them both. He also knew that Fade was wanted by the police and sooner or later they'd find a way to keep him from escaping.

"What do you want from me, if I join?" Fade asked.

Ebon smiled to himself. "Nothing. Just your cooperation. We can hash out the details later. Talon? Can you give Fade his welcome gift?"

The bird girl stepped forward, holding out a shoe box with about ten thousand dollars inside.

Fade took the box, looked inside and gasped in surprise.

"Go back to your friends, let them know I'll be meeting with them soon."

Fade closed the box, smiling. 

**7.5 Tracks**

Richie lay on his bed, angry and nursing a headache. His parents were arguing in the other room and Richie could still hear them, even through the earplugs and his pillow.

"It's not my fault," Richie's dad shouted. "It's the dang Mexicans taking all our jobs!"

Richie groaned. He would have liked to be at the Gas Station of Solitude, but Virgil was there right now, and Richie really didn't want to see him again.

Virgil hadn't been happy when he'd found out Richie had dismantled the police scanner and the walkie-talkies. He'd made it sound like Richie had gone to his house and smashed up the TV for no good reason and refused to believe that the walkie-talkies would be able to do the same thing as the scanner once Richie had tinkered with them a little more.

At some point, Virgil had let it slip that he had signed Alva's contract and Richie had lost his temper too. He didn't remember everything he'd said, but he was pretty sure he'd called Virgil a sellout.

Okay, that wasn't true, he _did_ remember everything he'd said, he just didn't want to think about it. Instead he was thinking about his math homework. Numbers were easy to deal with. They were smooth and simple and didn't get pissed off for no good reason.

Virgil could be so oblivious sometimes. Didn't he understand how hard it was not to be jealous? Virgil always got the breaks. Yeah, he'd had to deal with some heavy stuff, but he had his dad and his sister and didn't have to eat peanut butter every day because tuna was too expensive.

Richie had tried to make Virgil's whole superhero thing a joint operation, like ground control and astronauts. Like the pit crew and NASCAR drivers. Like...

He pushed the similes aside and tried to focus on math again. It was too bad he'd already worked out the answers to all the problems. Under the pillow, Richie frowned. He'd looked at the problems in class and now he just _knew_ the answers?

It only took a couple seconds to piece together all the clues—the headaches, the skills at math and building things, the limited exposure to big bang gas. He had a superpower, and that superpower was being good at analytic thinking.

Richie groaned into the pillow. Great. The lamest power ever. At least he hadn't mutated, but that wasn't much of a consolation.

No, there was more to it than just analytic thinking. It was like someone had set up partitions in his brain and each different section could do its own partially autonomous thing. Like memorize and figure out the answers to math homework, or design a better walkie-talkie.

Richie scrunched his eyes closed and tried to visualize what was going on in his head. A series of tracks, all running in parallel like train tracks. Sometimes they split, sometimes they merged, but they were all part of the same thing. Right? It wasn't like he was going schizophrenic or had multiple personality disorder or anything. He was still just Richie. Only he could tell his brain to think about stuff without his real self being actually aware of it.

But that couldn't be good, could it? To have your brain think about things without you knowing it? Maybe that was why he'd been so grumpy lately, like all his processing power was being used up by stuff he didn't even know about.

Over the image of the parallel tracks he imagined a control tower, monitoring the tracks and the trains. The Administrator. It was the Administrator's job to keep an eye on all the tracks and let Richie's core self know what was going on.

 _Sixty five_ _tracks in progress,_ Administrator reported. Richie's new mental construct used his "Houston" voice.

 _Seriously?_ Richie thought. _What am I thinking about?_

 _A total of twenty tracks dedicated to sensory input and bodily functions. Ten tracks dedicated to engineering problems, six to homework assignments, five to models of what other people might be doing right now, three to math problems, one to programming a sequel to Jump, one to bowling, one to thinking of similes related to your friendship with Virgil, and the rest to video-perfect memories._

 _How many before I start getting headaches?_

 _Probably fifty or so._

 _Can I delete tracks?_

 _Yup._

Richie rubbed his forehead under the pillow. _Delete bowling track._ The pressure in his head lessened, and a flood of images and understanding of bowling filled his conscious mind. The way spin affected the ball, how to salvage a split, fun nicknames to put on the scoreboard. And then it was gone, buried in his memory. Not his perfect track-based memory, but his regular, imperfect memory.

Most of the recorded memories followed and Richie suddenly felt way better. His parents were still fighting and Virgil was still mad at him, but his head was clear and he was feeling more awake and alert than he had in weeks. He sat up.

 _Yo, Admin. Can I delete the hearing track?_ He was sick of the fight going on in the other room.

 _Only if we want to forget how to process auditory information. But you could make a track to temporarily block out audio input._

Richie made the track and removed the earplugs. It was eerie. He snapped his fingers next to his head. Nothing. This was too weird, so he deleted that track and made another to quiet and distort sounds instead.

 _New track: Guard Dog._ The thought of ruining his ability to process sounds or stopping his heart by mistake was pretty scary, so this new track had the job of protecting the essential tracks from accidents. This construct looked like a grizzled German Shepherd that patrolled up and down its track.

 _So, what about those engineering problems?_ Richie's core self asked the Administrator.

 _Still working on them. What do you want me to do with them?_

 _Let me know when they're done,_ Richie thought, going over the list of projects he was working on in the back of his mind. The walkie-talkies of course, a couple different robots, a small biofuel engine, a jetpack, a spaceship... He scrapped the spaceship and nudged the jet pack track to focus more on finding a way to keep from burning his legs up with rocket fuel. He tried to make a track dedicated to inventing a fuel he could make himself, but that one would take forever if he didn't learn more about chemistry first. In fact, all of these projects were going to take way too long unless he broadened his base knowledge. Being good at calculating only got him so far.

But there would be time for studying later. He lay back on his bed and listened to an album he'd accidentally recorded in a memory track a few days ago.

Okay, so maybe he didn't have a superpower that was good for fighting crime like Virgil did, but for entertainment and money-making potential? Richie was pretty stoked. The only question that remained was how Virgil was going to react when Richie told him. For all his newfound mental processing power, he wasn't sure how that one was going to play out.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Short chapter today.

Richie's finally figured out his power! In the show, his power was pretty much just _magically inventing stuff_ , but I think this is a little more interesting. The whole Richie-Admin conversation was fun to write. The Robert-Adam one on the other hand, was tougher. Next chapter I think we'll catch up with Francis again and the mystery of where the gas came from.


	8. Different Angles

**8 Different Angles**

The blueprints are long gone, but the money has to go somewhere, and the building itself still stands. 

**8.1 Treatment**

Francis was afraid. The people in the hospital were all so _sick_. They were too skinny or too fat, they had fluids leaking out or being pumped in with machines. He could smell it too, the smell of sickness and death masked by bleach and soap and it was hard not to believe that just by being there, by breathing all that in, it would make him sick too. Sick and weak and helpless.

He didn't let it show though, because that would make the nurse's aid less afraid of him and then she wouldn't do what he told her to.

The terrified aide took him to a doctor's office. Not like one of those little rooms where they poked you with needles and took your temperature, but an actual office with a computer and filing cabinets.

Dr. Malloney was a woman doctor, middle aged with short hair. She took off her glasses and looked up from her paperwork when Francis let himself in. Her eyes widened for a second.

"Hotstreak," she said in a cold voice.

"Doctor," he said, equally aloof. Behind him, the door slammed shut as the aide ran away. "Do you mind if I sit?"

The doctor nodded at a chair and Francis dragged it over to her desk, spun it around and sat in it backwards.

"Forgive me for being brusque, but what do you want?" the doctor asked.

"How's the cure coming? You guys are working on that, right?" Francis said, trying not to be too threatening. This whole reputation he'd got for being a crazy supervillain was totally unfounded, but for some reason people were acting weird and scared around him and it was getting to be annoying.

The doctor gave a barking laugh like she just couldn't keep it in. "A cure?" Then her face fell. "You're serious."

Francis scowled. "Yeah, I'm serious. You've been telling bang babies, 'come to the hospital' ever since the start of this thing, and now I'm here and you're saying you're not even _working_ on a cure?"

The doctor shook her head. "We've been treating symptoms as best we can, but this gas, as far as we can tell, it changes a person's DNA. Theoretically gene therapy could resolve some of our problems, but that technology is years down the line."

"How long?"

"Long enough for you to finish medical school."

Francis didn't know how long medical school took, but it had to be a long time. Two or three years at least. Long enough for Maria to lose her mind and for Francis to do something he'd regret.

"Tell me about treatment."

The doctor's face relaxed, like she'd decided Francis wasn't here to burn down her office. "Physical therapy and counseling, mostly. Mood altering medication. Corrective surgery. I could make you an appointment."

"Can't you do it now?" He was already there, and she was a doctor. Why make him wait for drugs?

"I'm not a psychiatrist and the ones we have on staff are notoriously busy." She woke up her computer and clicked around for a minute before turning the screen so he could see. "It looks like the earliest opening is seven in the morning on Tuesday..."

"What about, like, a couple's session?" Francis didn't really like the thought of seeing a shrink, but this was for his girl. And maybe some adderall.

The doctor gave him a surprised look, but said nothing. She clicked around on the computer a little more. "Same time, Monday of next week?"

Francis had quit going to school, so that wasn't going to be a problem. "Sure."

The doctor gave him the lowdown on what all documents they would both need to bring and asked, "Is there anything I should let the doctor know before you meet with her?"

"Like that I'm not crazy? I just lose it sometimes, you know? Tell her that."

The doctor nodded and typed something into the computer. "And your S.O.?" she asked, still typing.

"My girl, Maria?"

The doctor nodded again.

Francis looked up at the ceiling, thinking. Maria didn't want her mom or anybody to find out what had happened to her, 'cause it was embarrassing. He didn't know if he'd even be able to convince her to come to the appointment. But if she did go, it'd be better if the shrink knew what was up so she didn't say anything on accident that would make her feel worse. If they knew just how bad things had gone for Maria and didn't make a huge deal out of it.

He sighed, struggling to put all this to words. "She's all kinds of screwed up." 

**8.2 Car Rides**

Instead of going on patrol or hanging out with Richie (not that we were talking again after the incident yesterday with the scanner) I met up with my new Alva-funded personal trainer after school. I changed into my costume and he picked me up about half a mile away from campus, on the edge of downtown.

"Alec," the trainer said, giving me an awkward handshake once I was wedged into his black sedan.

"Static," I said, and buckled up. Almost on cue, the radio went all funky and I turned it off. "Sorry."

Alec laughed. He was a white guy, maybe twenty-five or so, with curly brown hair and not as much muscle as I'd expected a personal trainer to have.

"Don't worry about it! I wanted to talk to you anyway. Not to get all fan boy on you, but I think what you're doing is pretty cool! The way you caught that armadillo guy, what was his name?"

"I dunno," I said, wondering if maybe I should have chosen a different trainer. But Alec was a boxer and had decent level belts in a couple different martial arts. I figured he'd be able to teach me how to punch and maybe throw a few holds if I ever got in a hand-to-hand situation and zapping the other guy wasn't going to work.

"With the dumpster! Just like, no biggie, whatever."

"That was harder to pull off than it looked," I said, but Alec was unfazed.

"Even more impressive. It takes finesse to make a hard thing look easy. Speaking of which, what did you have in mind for our little sessions?"

I told him my ideas and we hashed out a plan on the way to the gym—the private one used by Alva employees. It wasn't big, but it was well equipped. Alec coached me in using the machines and the weights the right way so I wouldn't hurt myself and showed me a few basic Judo stances, and then he was dropping me off again at the edge of downtown.

I flew part of the way to the center, changed and walked the rest of the way, just in time for Pops to give me a ride home.

"This is a surprise," Pops said as I threw my backpack into the backseat. "I thought you didn't like the center anymore."

"Who said I didn't like the center?" I was hurt.

"You haven't been around much lately. What've you been up to?"

I didn't like where this was going. "Stuff. With Richie."

"Oh yeah? What kind of stuff?" He sounded genuinely interested, but these were shark infested waters.

"Science stuff," I said with a shrug. "You know. It's kinda nerdy, so don't tell anyone at the center or I'll never get picked first for B-ball again."

Pops chuckled. "As long as you're not building any killer robots."

I laughed. "I promise we're not building any robots, killer or otherwise. That'd be like us _asking_ for Slipstream to attack us again."

The crinkles around Pops' eyes smoothed out and he glanced at me for just a moment before returning his attention to the road.

Uh-oh. He was still freaked out that I'd been at the museum when the flying fatso had struck.

"You know," I said, quick to cover up my slip, "if he was still on the loose. But Static got him, so he's not gonna be coming after anybody for a long time."

Pops grunted, but he wasn't placated yet.

"Hey, what do you think about Static anyway?" This seemed like a natural direction for the conversation, and I _had_ to know.

Pops glanced at me again. "I think he has good intentions, but there are better ways he could be applying himself than vigilantism."

Ouch. I wanted to rebut, but I also didn't want to give Pops any cause for suspicion. Then again, regular, non-hero Virgil would probably be a fan, so I went ahead and voiced my opinion. "Seriously? He's like the Batman of Dakota. Doesn't cool count for anything?"

"Not when people's lives are at risk."

I shut my mouth. Maybe he was just in a bad mood from something that had happened at the center. I let a few seconds go by and then started telling him about all the good things that were going on at school. Passing the math test, making friends with Daisy, no more Francis Stone prowling the hallways.

Some of the tension in his face faded, but it was still there. It hit me after a while what it was that was eating him up. Adam. Either he was mad at Adam for backsliding and getting himself mixed up at the big bang, or he was mad at Sharon for still dating him. This had nothing to do with me. 

**8.3 Sick Day**

"Take care, Daddy," Sharon said, blowing Robert a kiss on her way out the door.

Robert waved back at her from his post on the couch, pajamas on, cup of tea cooling on the coffee table, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He wasn't feeling that under the weather, but he had woken up with a tickle in his throat and swollen lymph nodes. Not usually enough to bother taking the day off, but today he had other plans. He nursed his teacup for a few minutes until he was sure Sharon and Virgil were both safely at school, then abandoned his sickbed and went upstairs.

Jean probably wouldn't approve of what he was doing, but there was only so much a single father could handle. His child lying to him wasn't something he was going to tolerate, and he didn't know how to better deal with the situation.

Virgil had been keeping something from him for weeks now. At least since the big bang, but probably before then even. Robert hadn't noticed it at first, being so busy with the fallout of that disaster, but in hindsight he saw the clues. The change in appetite, sleep, schedule, the drop in grades, how Virgil had only "passed" this last test that Richie had gotten an A on.

And now this alibi that had fallen through. He'd been so relieved when Richie had said they were working on robotics stuff after school—that was the kind of activity Robert could support, even if Virgil had forgotten to tell him about it. But then, Virgil's slip of the tongue in the car yesterday... Richie was covering for his friend.

Robert's first assumption was drugs. He prayed that it wasn't, but nine times out of ten that was the case. Maybe Virgil was the ten percent, and he'd only started dating a girl Robert wouldn't like. But that couldn't be it, because if it was anyone, it was Daisy, and Daisy was as well-behaved a girl as any parent could ask for.

He opened the door to his son's room. It was like stepping into a planetarium. Outer space covered seventy-five percent of the walls and a good part of the ceiling. What would turn a kid like Virgil to drugs? Pressure from friends, a need to escape? Virgil's friends were all as academically minded as he was. Richie and Frieda? Omar? They were all good kids. What did Virgil need to escape from? Was he being bullied? Was he depressed or did he have anxiety?

Robert sighed and opened up Virgil's dresser drawers. He didn't like to invade his son's privacy like this, but it was his duty as a parent to make sure his kids were on the right track and if Virgil wasn't going to keep him in the loop...

The dresser was clean, and so was the desk, the piles of junk on the floor and the space between the mattress and the boxspring. Robert checked his watch to make sure Sharon wouldn't be home anytime soon and moved on to the closet.

Virgil's dress clothes hung on hangers, but the floor of the closet was like the site of an archaeology dig. Layers upon layers of debris. Robert found two plates he'd assumed to be broken, a cage for a hamster long since dead, a bunch of old clothes that should have been thrown out or given to charity years ago. Robert picked up a white t-shirt and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. He turned it right-side-out to see a lightning bolt printed across the front in black paint.

It took Robert a second to remember where he'd seen that symbol. On TV, on the chest of Dakota's resident superhero. The shirt slipped through Robert's fingers. He felt sick to his stomach.

Virgil couldn't be Static. He was a fan, so he'd made himself a Static shirt. Only... Static was wearing a different symbol these days and Robert had never seen Virgil wear this shirt. It had been buried in the closet, secret.

Robert placed a hand against the wall, willing himself not to have a heart attack. One hand-painted t-shirt didn't mean anything.

After a couple deep breaths, Robert knelt in the doorway of the closet, looking for more clues. A pair of yellow swim goggles. Didn't Static wear goggles? He picked up the shirt again and sat in front of the computer on Virgil's desk. What felt like an eternity later, Robert had an Ask Jeeves page up, loading images of Static bit by bit. They were pictures of his son. Despite the hood and the goggles and the poor image quality, Robert recognized his child.

Robert closed the page, deleted the history and shut down the computer. He sat in the desk chair for a long while, just looking at the incriminating object. This was what Virgil was hiding and Robert didn't know what to think.

On some level, he was proud that his son was trying to be a hero, but no matter the powers he might have had, Robert was afraid for his safety, moreso than he ever had been for Jean's. Virgil was going out _looking_ for fights, not cleaning up after them.

There was dismay too, over the fact that Virgil had kept this secret from him—that he didn't trust his pops enough. That hurt. Robert prided himself on being the kind of man someone could turn to with whatever question, whatever worry they might have without fear of judgment.

And anger, that Virgil had been at the scene of the big bang or exposed to someone who had been. Was he still involved in the gang? How had he let himself get dragged into that sphere? Did he not remember what had happened to Jean? What Robert himself had dedicated his life to? More than angry, he felt betrayed.

He didn't know what to do. Confront Virgil, right now? No, that was just his anger talking. Virgil must have assumed his Pops would be angry with him, that was why he hadn't told the truth. Robert had to handle this delicately. Build up trust again, wait for a calm, opportune moment. Prove to Virgil that even if he didn't approve one hundred percent, he would still support him as long as he made good, safe decisions. 

**8.4 Accounting**

EJ looked at the spreadsheet on his office computer, confused. One of his underlings had first found the discrepancy, and EJ had thrown himself into the rabbit hole, not realizing just how deep and twisty it got. Something to the tune of several million dollars had been tossed around from subsidiary to subsidiary, renamed, recalculated, redistributed.

Not all in one piece of course—a hundred thousand here, fifty grand there. EJ's first thought had been that someone was cooking the books, but everything evened out, taxes paid. All the money was ending up in the appropriate places—in the payrolls of vetted employees, in approved projects and regular construction and maintenance—it was just near impossible to keep track of what went where.

But there was a reason EJ had been placed in charge of this cross-departmental accounting team. He wasn't a genius, but he was competent and willing to put in the hours.

EJ checked the time at the bottom of his screen. 2354. Some people complained about using military time, but when you had to deal with the documents of a company that never slept, it only made sense.

He rubbed his eyes and referred to the CSI-like diagram he'd made, complete with strings and pins and sticky notes. The biggest chunk of the wandering money had gone into a subsidiary known as ChemTrail, a chemical company that had worked on a wide variety of projects. From developing a slicker hydraulic fluid to improving the plastics used in prosthetic legs and dozens of things in between, primarily in conjunction with the security and defense portion of the parent company.

Here was where the latest mystery came in. ChemTrail had spent roughly three million dollars in a construction project a couple years ago that might as well have been on another plane of existence. No one at the parent company knew what he was talking about, and his superiors were reluctant to dedicate more resources to finding the building in question. On ChemTrail's end, his counterparts were being as unhelpful as they were legally allowed to be. They questioned his authority to access the files, they delayed and misunderstood, they had to wait two weeks for the one guy who knew what he was doing to come back from vacation.

In the end, he'd gone to the town hall, on a hunch that the mystery building project had been built in the same city that housed both the parent company and the subsidiary. But what he'd found there didn't match up with what he had on his CSI chart. According to the people at the zoning office, ChemTrail hadn't built anything since '95, six years ago. _That_ building had cost a good deal less than three million dollars and was the small plastics lab adjoined to the college, not the monstrosity that EJ was hunting for, which had, as far as he could tell, had contracted a company that principally built bomb shelters and military facilities. His entreaties with that company had gone worse than his efforts with ChemTrail. Managers, architects and laborers alike had ignored his emails and blocked his phone calls.

EJ blinked and let his eyes wander over the chart. His attention snagged on a recent spike in ChemTrail's spending. About a month ago, over the course of three or four days, the company had made several large expenditures. This wasn't unusual—lab equipment went in and out of style faster than women's clothes and was just about as expensive. He didn't have access to that portion of their budget however, so he was only guessing it was lab equipment. It could be something else, like untimely Christmas bonuses or some serious on-site injuries. No, what caught his attention was the date. A quick check of his calendar told him it had been three days after his unsuccessful first date with Mary, and one day after the big bang.

Praise God for broadband. A few minutes later EJ was reading the channel three news website, learning that no one was taking responsibility for the warehouse that had exploded, leaked crazy gas and then conveniently caught fire. The deeds were missing and the lawyers were coming up empty-handed. Just like he was.

Huh.

EJ yawned. He was reaching that point of the evening where he started to get a little crazy and paranoid. Better call it a night.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Well, a short chapter again. I just started a new job (woo!) and classwork is ramping up, so there's that.

Looks like Francis is losing his motivation, but other people are doing their own investigations. Gosh, writing that EJ scene was hard. I tried looking up stuff about how accounting works across companies and their subsidiaries, but... I ended up making stuff up. I think it shows. :/

Next chapter things take a... darker turn


	9. Countdown

**9 Countdown**

There are seven of them, eight counting Ebon himself. Five men and three women all changed in some way by the gas leak at Pier Fourteen. Soon the city will revere them as it should.

 **9.1 Partners**

"Yo, V!" Richie caught up with me just as school was ending. It had been a couple days since our fight and I'd kinda been intentionally avoiding him. Eating lunch with Daisy and Frieda, being lab partners with Omar.

I'd been planning on just going home today, or to the center to assuage Pop's fears, but I knew that sooner or later I'd have to talk to Richie again. Richie's gas station was Static's hideout, and Static had to keep protecting the city if he wanted to get paid.

"'Sup?"

He glanced around, then handed me a little metal box, painted yellow and black along one edge. A dial on one side pointed to the letter P.

"Turn it on," Richie said before I could ask what it was.

I hit a button marked _on/off_ , expecting a burst of static since I hadn't drained my batteries since before breakfast. To my surprise, the voice coming out of the box was clear and familiar. The police broadcast.

"I call them shockvoxes," Richie said, again before I could even open my mouth. "Sorry I broke the scanner and was all grumpy for a while. Can we be cool again? I got something I wanna tell you."

"Sure, man." I switched off the "shockvox" and led the way towards the school busses. I _did_ have my costume with me, just in case, and taking the bus to Richie's neighborhood would be the best way to get to the gas station.

"Something in private," Richie said, and pulled me around so we were headed towards downtown. "First off, I'm sorry I called you a sellout. Signing the contract was probably a really good idea, especially if you're getting insurance and lawyers and stuff."

I kinda wanted to give him a hard time for ever having thought otherwise, but Richie was the one being the bigger man here and straight up apologizing.

"It's fine, man. Don't worry about it."

"Right." Richie pushed his glasses up his nose. "The other thing is that I'm a bang baby."

Somehow I managed to choke on my own spit. "You too?" I said, a little too loud. We were still on campus, and there were a lot of people around.

"Yeah. I mean, you reeked of the gas after the explosion. So I must have got it like second-hand."

I shook my head. Adam, and now Richie? Who would be next? Frieda? Mr. Lee?

"It took a little longer to work and I don't think my power is as strong as yours, but I figure that's because I didn't get as high a dosage," Richie said, all matter of fact.

"You're serious." For some reason, I was less thrilled about the idea of Richie having a superpower than I probably should have been. He was gonna want to be a hero too, and I didn't relish the thought of sharing my spotlight. Or the fact that Richie could get hurt, or that it would be awfully suspicious if Static teamed up with a guy who looked a heck of a lot like Virgil Hawkins' best friend, even if they did both wear masks.

"No, I'm pulling your leg. Of course I'm serious, c'mon, Virg. Do I ever joke about stuff like this?"

He smiled at me in a way I couldn't for the life of me interpret. He _did_ joke about serious stuff. Like, all the time. It was how he dealt with it. Then again, he didn't have any reason for lying about being a bang baby.

We crossed the street, headed for the center. "So, what's your power?" I asked, keeping my voice just low enough to be heard over the traffic.

"I'm a super-genius. Grading curves look out, because here comes Richard Foley, outlier," he said, waving his hand like he was demonstrating a marquis.

I couldn't help but smile at that, in part because it was funny and in part because you couldn't be a superhero with that kind of power. Richie grinned too, and just like that it was as if we'd never fought at all. Even if I'd been angry at him, I'd still missed hanging out like this.

"Is that how you came up with this thing?" I asked, holding up the shockvox.

"These things," Richie said, showing me a matching device. "And yup, that's it. It's also why I was getting all those headaches. Sorry again for being a jerk."

"Man, as long as you don't go turning into a mad scientist we're cool. I shoulda figured something was up. And hey, like, welcome to the club." I offered my fist and Richie bumped it, then shook out his hand from the accidental shock.

We stopped at an intersection and waited for the light to change. We crossed and once the crowd had thinned, Richie said, "So, I was thinking about what my hero name should be."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "You sure that's the best idea?"

"Who's the super-genius here? The _best_ idea would be to lay low and then make it big in Vegas when I turn eighteen. Then start my own company as the world's premier inventor. Cure cancer, build spaceships, achieve immortality, you know. The usual. But all that's like years and years away and right now we got super-powered freaks ruining stuff all over the city, and it's just you and the cops keeping the peace. And it's like I said. I got your back."

I wouldn't say I was relieved, but it felt _good_ to hear Richie say that. It wasn't like I didn't have support, but all the Alva people were so cold and professional. Or they saw me as a celeb and went all fanboy on me. I didn't really have anyone who was an equal. But still…

"I know, man. But being super smart, it's not like if you could fly or had laser vision or something. You sure you'd wanna face off against Hotstreak or that snake guy?" In a dangerous situation, he might as well have not had any powers at all.

"See, that's what I thought at first too, but then I realized that for any superpower out there, I can probably build something that does the same thing. Flying, easy. Laser vision? Give me a week in an optics lab and I could build a functioning phaser pistol."

I looked at the shockvox. A month ago there was no way Richie would have been able to throw something like this together, not just from the junk in the gas station. With a real workshop, like the ones at Alva Industries? Richie's power might actually have been cooler than mine.

"What were you thinking of for a name?" I asked.

Richie grinned. "Gear."

 **9.2 Until Midnight**

Mayor Taggarty liked her office, with its burnished oak furnishings and hundred year old windows that gave the view a distorted, nostalgic look.

She was just finishing up a few things before heading home for the day, when suddenly the lights flickered and a breath of wind rustled the papers on her desk. Ebon appeared in Mayor Taggarty's office, a young girl at his side.

"You!" she said, trying to hide her fear and surprise as she tapped the emergency button on the underside of her desk. "What are you doing here?" The mayor didn't have time to stay fully abreast of each individual law-breaking bang baby, but she was familiar with Ebon. A thief, sociopathic and delusional.

"I have a request, madam Mayor."

"The Town Hall forum is a more appropriate setting for requests," the mayor said. She gave the button under her desk one last push and got to her feet. "I'm going to have to ask that you leave."

"And I'm going to have to ask that you stop pressing that button. The police are a little busy at the moment and your security guards are... off-duty." His tone was empty and he had no face, no expressions to read.

Now Mayor Taggarty really was afraid. Ebon wasn't that powerful, not compared to Hotstreak or even Static, but he was crazy and would have been dangerous even without the powers. Her best course of action was to play along.

"Very well. Please, take a seat." She gestured to the chairs opposite her desk.

"No." Ebon placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and her strange yellow eyes went out of focus. Smoke started to dribble from her palms, spreading upward to blanket the ceiling. The mayor's heart pounded in her chest. Another firestarter? But no, it didn't smell like smoke. It was darkness, cloudy and thick like ink. The overhead light dimmed bit by bit as Ebon spoke.

"I want this city, madam Mayor. You will hand over to me every deed in the city, every dollar of funds. I want the key to your office and executive control of every public service. If my demands are not met, I will tear apart this city with war and darkness. I'll be watching the news for your reply. You have until midnight."

There was a second small gust of wind, and Mayor Taggarty found herself alone in her office once again. With shaky fingers, she felt around for the phone and dialed the number for the chief of police. She managed to keep herself together until the end of the phone call, but after that she was sobbing with relief that she'd gotten out of the encounter unscathed. Was this what her city was doomed to become?

 **9.3 Preparing for Battle**

Me and Richie were at my house, watching the news with Sharon. Pops was still feeling sick, so he'd gone to bed right after dinner. I felt sick myself, looking at the screen.

Shaky footage from only an hour or so ago showed an enormous muscled woman smashing through the wall of the downtown police station like it was cardboard. Cut to Shelly Sandoval standing in front of the ruined building, a crumpled cruiser on the edge of the frame.

"We're just being told now that this attack was nothing more than a distraction while the metahuman Ebon and an unknown accomplice broke into Mayor Taggarty's office with demands and threats against the city. The mayor has not yet released the exact wording of those demands, but she has reached out to the National Guard for aid in preventing Ebon's threat to attack at midnight." Shelly blinked and seemed to do a double-take of her teleprompter.

"In the meantime," she said, recovering her composure, "citizens are advised to remain indoors. This is a terrorist threat, one that city and state officials are taking in the most serious manner."

Sharon turned off the TV. "I'm calling Adam." She got up and took the phone in the kitchen.

My stomach sank. He couldn't have been involved at all, could he?

"We gotta get back to the lab," Richie said to me in a whisper. We'd spent the whole afternoon at Alva Industries, working on Gear's gear. Well, Richie and the stage one robotics team had worked on it. I had watched, a little freaked out seeing Richie's power in action. He'd get this blank look on his face, like he was about to have a seizure, and then he'd run for the nearest flat surface and start scribbling away. Drawings, formulas, diagrams… I couldn't make heads or tails of it. But at least the Alva guys knew their stuff. They had half a jetpack already assembled, and some kind of spider robot was probably still getting reprogrammed right now.

"Call your folks first," I whispered back. "I'm gonna charge up." It had been Richie who had figured out I could do this—pull juice from some other source and power up my batteries. He'd even designed some high-voltage batteries I could bust out in a fight if I was getting too drained. We hadn't actually made any yet, so for now I just had a severed length of extension cord.

I went up to my room and plugged myself in. The lights flickered for a second before I got the flow under control. The buzz in my chest grew, almost to the point where it was getting uncomfortable.

Richie let himself into my room and we both changed into our costumes. Mine mostly homemade, his the best money could buy on short notice. Military surplus pants and boots, a body armor vest like mine and a motorcycle helmet with a built-in computer. The whole get up was green and white, just because that was what was on hand.

"Ready?" Richie asked.

"Ready." I opened the window and levitated us both out, me on my steel plate and Richie on his scooter. Richie had a network of wires running through his costume as well, to act like a Faraday cage so I couldn't shock him by accident. Not that mag-lev could shock anyone.

A few minutes later we were back in the lab. The techs were still there and there was a pot of coffee brewing in the corner.

"I'm going down to the station," I told Richie. I didn't really have any reason to stick around the lab.

He nodded. "Rodger. Keep me posted."

I checked the shockvox was in my pocket and took off again into the darkening city.

A tarp had been taped up over the hole in the police station wall and there were officers standing guard around the building, crime scene tape cordoning off the scene. I landed next to one of the officers.

"Yo, anything I can do to help?" I'd thought about apologizing for not showing up when Brickhouse had attacked, but I didn't want to sound condescending. I probably wouldn't have been any help anyway.

"You're asking the wrong guy, kid. Go see the chief. In the conference room."

"Right." I stepped off my plate and jogged up the steps. The metal detector went nuts before I even got near it, and the guy manning it waved me through.

I thanked him and zoomed up the stairs. The chief wasn't hard to find—he was in the conference room like the metal detector guy had said, looking like the eye of a hurricane. He was standing next to a whiteboard, quietly reading from a file folder while other people rushed around with phones and coffee and and stressed looks.

I knocked on the door to the conference room, not wanting to interrupt or get in the way.

Quiet went through the room like a wave as people stopped what they were doing to turn and stare at me. So much for not interrupting.

The chief looked up from his folder. "Static. Alva said you'd be coming. Please, take a seat. We'll be starting soon."

Mystified, I sat and accepted a cup of coffee. I was already jittery, but I needed something to do with my hands.

The shockvox buzzed in my pocket and I answered it.

"Yeah?"

"Go easy on the coffee," Richie's voice said.

"How-?"

"Lucky guess. It's late, you're hanging out with cops…" he trailed off and I could picture him shrugging in my head. "Listen, it sounds like the chief's gonna lay out the cards. Put the shockvox on the table so I can hear everything, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. How's your end going?"

"Pretty good. The pack should be done in an hour or so, two on the outside. The robot's still compiling and it won't do me much good until I train in the voice commands, but we're getting the sensory equipment up and running and I'll get the feed wired into my helmet. That'll be three hours at least. Anything else I'm putting off till we know what we're dealing with."

"Jeez. And here I am, sitting on my butt."

Richie laughed. "Your butt's fine where it is. But seriously, go easy on the coffee. I have a feeling caffeine and electricity aren't the best mix."

"Okay, Dad," I said and signed off, leaving the shockvox on the table. I took a sip of the coffee just to prove he wasn't the boss of me. It was gross.

The meeting started without much fanfare. It was me, the chief, the mayor, a dozen or so officers and aides and other people, and a rep from the National Guard on speakerphone. After some trouble with a bad connection, I traded seats with someone at the end of the table furthest from the phone.

"We have a terrorist threat on our hands," the chief said. "They're metahuman, but we're treating this just like we would any other terrorist threat. No negotiating, no holds barred. We're going to take them down fast and hard before they have time to strike." He clicked a button on a remote in his hand and a slide appeared on the wall beside him, a picture of a blurry dark shape, vaguely humanoid.

"This is Ebon, leader of the metahuman gang the Metabreed. First showed up three days after the big bang, calling himself the master of space and darkness. Real identity unknown. His powers include shapeshifting, healing, and most importantly, teleportation through use of portals. He hides, he sneaks, and he strikes only when it's convenient for him.

"If Ebon is hitting the city now, it's because he thinks he has an advantage. Most likely this girl." A sketch artist's rendition of a freckled teenage girl came on the screen. "Name and alias unknown. Power: darkness generation, according to Mayor Taggarty's report."

The mayor nodded without saying anything and the chief continued. "Ebon's power is strongest in the absence of light. If this girl can generate enough darkness, Ebon will have complete freedom of movement throughout the city, while our forces run blind, creating the optimum conditions for him to carry out his 'war and darkness' threat."

The disembodied voice of the National Guard rep spoke up. "Hold on, Chief. What exactly was the threat this Ebon guy laid down?"

"That was all he said," Mayor Taggarty said. "That he would tear down the city with war and darkness if we didn't meet his demands."

"And the demands?"

The mayor rolled her eyes, making no attempt to hide her scorn. "Ridiculous. He wants tax money and land titles."

I didn't know much about government, but I had the feeling it was illegal for the mayor to hand over those things. It was kind of a weird request. Usually terrorists wanted money or weapons or one of their buddies released from prison. It sounded to me like Ebon wanted to be made into a feudal lord. The Metabreed were like his knights, and he was going to use them to storm the castle of his rival, Lady Taggarty.

The chief spoke, taking the floor again. "Not something we can give him. We're working under the assumption that he's making this threat because he _wants_ to carry out the attack. If we can get in touch with him, we will be carrying out a bluff negotiation, only as an effort to thin Ebon's resources. Which are the metahumans known as: Talon," he clicked to a new slide, "Powers: flight, sonic blasts." Click. "Shiv. Partial shapeshifting." Click. "D-struct. Super strength, energy blasts." Click. "And Brickhouse. Super strength, nigh invulnerability. Questions?"

I raised my hand, forgetting for a second I wasn't in class. "D-struct can turn into a regular guy," I said, super self-conscious as everyone looked at me.

"For limited stretches of time, yes," the chief said. "Everyone, in case you haven't met him, this is our local vigilante, Static. He'll be lending us a hand this evening."

I gave a meek wave and waited for their eyes to go back to the chief. He clicked to a new slide, a summary of the members of Ebon's gang.

"In addition, Ebon has access to at least five hundred thousand dollars worth of stolen goods and cash, which he could be using to hire and equip more help." The chief set the remote on the table. "The real question is; what does Ebon plan on doing, and how will he try to do it?

"It's a safe bet that this is a bid for territory, and that he will use this darkness girl to secure that territory."

New slide, a map of the city.

"Ebon already controls most of the abandoned subway lines, highlighted here in purple. Red are the strategic targets." I recognized the hospital, the police station, the industrial piers, and a few other things that the city needed if it wanted to keep functioning—power stations, water towers, that kind of stuff.

"What we're asking from the National Guard is two things. Preparations for a potential civilian evacuation, and a frontal attack on Ebon's headquarters." He pointed to a spot of purple. "Meanwhile, my officers will search and secure strategic targets."

At first thought that seemed like a daunting task, but then I remembered the fleet of drones Alva had donated to the force.

I raised my hand again. "And me?"

"You're on reserve. If Ebon shows his face and my officers can't handle him, I'll need you to step in."

It felt like being put on the bench, but at the same time I was kinda glad he didn't ask me to lead a charge into the subway or something. Not when he was asking for real soldiers with real guns and training. Compared to that, I was just a kid with a built-in taser.

"What kind of numbers were you thinking?" the National Guard rep asked, and the chief started talking details—how many teams, who he wanted to go where, et cetera. The more he talked, the less I felt like I should have been in the room at all.

After an hour or so, the chief and the rep were still arguing and I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Somehow my coffee had wound up empty, even though I didn't remember deciding to drink it.

I took a leak, then sat in a chair in the hall by the elevator and radioed Richie.

"Gear, you there?"

He answered almost instantly. "I copy. What's up?"

"Nothing, they're still hashing things out. How's your stuff?"

"Good, right on schedule. I been thinking about the darkness generation girl. We need a way to stop her if we want to stop Ebon. Any chance you can ask Taggarty about her?"

"Sure. Static out."

 **9.4 First Meeting**

Mayor Taggarty had not been looking forward to her first encounter with Dakota's resident superhero. She knew as much about him as anyone could, and it was going to be tricky trying to figure out how much to let him know that she knew.

They were standing close in the crowded hallway and she could feel the hairs on her arms stand on end, pulled by his electric field.

"Sorry, I know you're super busy and it's late, but can I ask you about that darkness girl?" Static asked, keeping a respectful distance.

His tone reminded her that he was just a kid still though, and more innocent than anyone else here. She wondered for a moment how he'd ended up at the big bang, then pushed the thought aside.

"Of course, Static. What do you want to know?"

"Like, how did she make the darkness? Did she turn off the lights with her mind, or what?" He put two fingers to his head, like he was focusing on some mental power.

"No, it was more like ink, or smoke," the mayor said, somewhat relieved this was all he wanted.

He asked a couple more questions about the girl and her power, then pulled out the handheld radio he was known to carry and started talking with his new partner, the genius kid over at the Alva labs.

Mayor Taggarty needed to make her own phone call, so she excused herself from the scene and found a private corner in the women's restroom down on the second floor.

She punched the number into her cell phone and waited. Her callee picked up after the second ring.

"Yes?" a hard male voice answered.

"Are you sure those boys can handle this?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Based on Static's performance so far, and his attitude during the meeting, I just don't know… And we know nothing about this new kid."

"That's not the point here, Taggarty. Our goal is to keep things contained. Whatever it takes to keep the League out of our hair." As usual, the man on the other end hung up without a goodbye.

 **9.5 Toys**

I told the chief which frequency me and Richie were using on the shockvoxes and flew back to the lab. The SWAT teams were already moving out, and all the local media stations were on standby for an evacuation order. A small number of National Guard guys were on their way, but they would be a while yet. We still had a couple hours before Ebon's deadline.

The streets were weirdly quiet except for the cruisers, but maybe that was normal for this time of night. Even though I didn't want anything bad to happen, I hoped school would be canceled tomorrow. Otherwise I was going to sleep all through class.

Back at the lab, Richie was still hard at work.

"You drank the coffee, didn't you," Richie said without bothering to look up from his work.

"I didn't mean to," I said, taking a look at the spidery robot he was fiddling with.

"That's how addiction starts, man. You gotta be careful."

"Whatever," I said, rolling my eyes. "What's this?"

"Wearable sensory robot. I'm calling it Backpack until I can think of something better." He gave the screwdriver one more twist and closed up the robot's outer shell. He leaned against the table and faced me. "So I was thinking. This darkness girl, let's call her Inky, is making this physical stuff, right? Like the mayor said she had black smoke coming out of her hands. Running with the assumption that she can produce it at a limited rate, we need some way to disperse it faster than she can make it. If it _is_ essentially smoke, then a breeze in the right direction would do the trick-"

"You're not saying we should bust Slipstream out of jail, are you?"

"Nah, man." Richie shook his head, and I found myself wishing the faceplate wasn't tinted so I could see his expression. Talking to him like this was kinda like talking to a robot. "But that's a thought. No, I was thinking like a really big, flying fan."

"A helicopter."

"Bingo! Just descend on the cloud and poof! Of course, if Inky's stuff _isn't_ like smoke, that might not work. So my second thought is that the stuff is probably photosensitive, I mean it's liquid darkness, right? So, shine some lights on it."

"The police are already digging out the spotlights," I said.

"Good. Now, thoughts three, four, et cetera, get way less practical, so suffice it to say that my plan is to just keep throwing stuff at it until something works. The good thing is we know it's safe to touch, since it didn't bother Mayor Taggarty at all."

"Right." That sounded an awful lot like my typical plan. If a super-genius used the same plans as me, that probably meant I was on the right track.

Across the room, one of the techs shouted, "Hey, Gear! It's ready."

Richie jumped up, tapping a quick rhythm on the table. "Yesss, let's try it!" he said, and dashed off across the lab. I followed.

At the far end of the room, a tech was holding up a mess of struts and straps and wires. It looked like a back brace crossed with an airplane crossed with a set of tinkertoys.

"No way," I said, as the tech helped Richie into the rig.

"One custom built jetpack, thirty-five grand. The gift of flight, priceless," Richie said. He bounced on his toes. "Kinda heavy," he said to the tech.

"Prototype," the tech said with a shrug. "You wanna take it outside?"

"Does a dog like eating its own puke?"

The tech held open the door, walked him through the hand controls. I noticed there were already a couple burn marks on the cement of the parking lot. Not from explosions, I hoped.

"Ready?" the tech asked.

"Ready. Blast off in five, four, three…"

There was a burst of noise and fire, and Richie's feet lifted off the ground. If this had been any other day, I would have been cheering, asking for a turn, so what if I could already fly, this was a jetpack. But given that the city was hunkering down for a real supervillain attack, I couldn't help but wonder if this was the right time for this.

Richie got up to about twenty feet, did a couple circles and came back down with a roar of wind and flames.

"You sure about this?" I asked once the pack was quiet again.

"Yeah," Richie said, untangling himself from the mess. "This is a one-time-use, get me somewhere fast kind of deal. Don't worry about it, it's not gonna fall apart tonight. Time?"

"Ten forty-five," the tech said.

Richie nodded. "Static, how's your charge level?"

"Good." I was all kinds of jumped up.

"Why don't you go fly like a lap around Ebon's territory, see what you can see. I've still got stuff to work on here. Houston, can you get him set up with the satellite thing?"

I did a double-take. "Houston?" The tech, a scrawny white guy with glasses, scowled at me.

"I know, right?" Richie pulled the rig off his shoulders and carried it back into the lab, puffing a little.

Houston the tech took me over to a workbench by the coffeemaker and handed me a little box with an antenna sticking out.

"It's a GPS tracker. I can follow you on the computer with it, let you know where you should be going. Sound good?"

I turned it on, stuck it in my pants pocket. "I guess I'm off then."

"One more thing." He opened up a desk drawer and handed me a long black plastic tube attached to a strap. Inside there was a fluorescent bulb, one of those long skinny ones like they had at school.

"Since it's dark out. It's got a coat of epoxy so it won't shatter, but it's still glass. Be careful."

I slipped the strap over my shoulders so the tube lay across my back. Houston gave me a wave goodbye and I took off through the city again, going where he directed me.

If a tourist ever asked me for the tour that would give them the most authentic Dakota experience, I would have told them Houston's Tour of Abandoned Subway Entrances. On the tour, I got to see such charming sites as the projects, ground zero of the '96 riots and the sleazy end of downtown.

I crossed paths with the police a few times, but didn't stop to say hi. There were a few drones out too, and I gave them a wide berth so I wouldn't fry their circuits by accident. They looked like mini helicopters, only instead of a cockpit, they had cameras.

Other than that, almost no one was on the streets. Not much traffic, hardly any people. It was a weeknight, but still it was eerie.

No Metabreed either. The cruisers I passed were running quiet, no lights, no sirens and there was no word from Houston and Richie that anyone had found anything.

"Now what?" I asked, coming to a stop above the last subway entrance. "Go down inside? Head back to the station?" I wasn't too far, maybe five minutes away flying.

Richie answered instead of Houston. "I dunno, man. I haven't heard anything promising on the scanner. They checked all the likely targets and did a search of the subways. No one knows where Ebon is."

"He's got portals," I said.

"Yeah, but he's still gotta be _somewhere_."

That was true. If Ebon's power was anything like mine, using it too much would wear him out. How long could he keep it up for if he had to move a bunch of people every time the police got near?

It wouldn't be practical to keep jumping around the city, not when he was trying to prepare an attack. That meant he probably had a base somewhere, most likely the base he'd been using for his whole villainy career.

"If he's hiding somewhere, I bet it's the subway," I said. "Maybe I can see something the police missed."

"Your signal's gonna cut out if you go underground," Richie said.

Just like the radio in Pop's car. "I'll be quick." I had a good idea now where all the ways in and out were and magnetic powers gave me a better than average sense of direction.

"If I don't hear back in fifteen I'm coming after you."

"Last time you gave me like three hours," I said, trying to make a joke.

"Fourteen fifty-five, fifty-four," Richie said and I got going.

I popped open the plastic tube and took out the fluorescent light, glowing a little just from being near me. I gave it some more juice. Through my blue-tinted goggles, it almost looked like a lightsaber.

Thus armed against the dark, I dropped into the subway. Once upon a time there had been a fence to keep people out, but someone had cut through it. The air was dank and cool down there. A man-made cave. I held the light over my head and flew down the space meant for an escalator, over the turnstiles and onto the platform. Empty.

I closed my eyes for a second and focused on the electricity around me. Lots of metal and a few little animals hiding from the light, but no people. I swallowed, mouth dry. Would I be able to detect Ebon that way? He'd been transformed into a kind of mushy blob and I didn't know if blobs generated electricity.

He'd have a bunch of normal-er people with him, so I at least I'd be able to sense them for sure. Not that the thought made me feel any safer.

Giving the light a little more juice, I floated out over the tracks, reminding myself aloud that there were no trains down here. And in these conditions, I could go faster than them anyway.

Eager to be out of the tunnel, I piled on the speed, probably setting a new personal record. At the next platform I screeched to a stop, out of breath.

The platform wasn't empty. Someone had built a mini shanty town there, with a couple shacks and a VW van. My electro-sense told me no one was around, which was actually more unnerving than if there had been people there.

I took a cautious look in the shacks, but they weren't really that out of place. Like something a homeless guy might build. There was some bedding, some trash and personal items. Clothes and furniture and stuff.

This couldn't be Ebon's hideout, could it? If it was, it was way more run down than I had expected.

I glanced up towards the stairs, wondering if I should pop out and touch base with Richie. Yeah, that was a good idea. As I approached the stairs though, I realized something was weird.

How had the van got down here? The stairs were too narrow to let a van through, especially if you took into account the people and machinery necessary to maneuver it down the stairs. Portals were the only explanation.

I felt one more time for any people nearby and zoomed up the stairs.

"Gear?"

"Six minutes to spare." Richie said. "Find anything?"

"Ebon's hideout. No one's here and if they had any weapons or anything, they're gone now too."

"He's smart. He's hiding somewhere, chilling while we run around like kids with ADD."

"So where's he hiding?"

"Beats me," Richie said. He sounded tired. "Five minutes."

"What?"

"To midnight."

Oh no.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Originally I had planned a bunch of cut scenes showing what the Metabreed were up to, but I don't think it added much and just made the whole chapter extra confusing. Even still, this turned out longer and with less happening than I anticipated. Oh well! I'd say what's in store for next chapter, but you can probably guess ;)


	10. Blackout

**10 Blackout**

Dark clouds boil into the sky. Not smoke or fog, but something more sinister and strange.

 **10.1 Brainstorm**

I landed and started pacing. "C'mon, Gear. Where do you think he is?"

"I've been trying to figure it out for like an hour now, jeez. Cut me some slack. I can tell you where he's _not_."

"Okay."

"He's not in the subway, any of the strategic targets or anywhere where a drone can see him. He could be in a warehouse, or a house-house, or outside the city. That's all I got, I'm at a dead end."

"Right. So, let's think of places a guy like Ebon would go. What do we know about him?" I asked. My steel plate trailed behind me like an anxious pet while I paced.

"Besides the obvious? He's a shadow guy who likes shiny things and violence. And he's gotta be smart, if he's evaded the cops this far."

"The chief said he was gonna make a territory grab. From who? The 'nites?"

"He hasn't picked a fight with any of the other gangs yet, only the cops," Richie said, nixing that idea. "The 'nites are pretty much defunct now anyway, since most of 'em died or mutated."

"What about the police station?"

"It's a good target, but not where he's hiding. What else do we know about Ebon as a person?"

I thought about it. "He's ambitious, so what ever he does, it's gonna be big. And a big event needs a big prep space, right? Like the gym before a dance."

"Good. So he's probably not in a small house. What else?"

"He's full of himself and dramatic. He calls himself the fricking Master of Space and Darkness, and you heard that threat he made, right?"

"War and darkness, yeah. So someplace dramatic. But again, that's more of a target than a hideout."

"What's the time?" I asked. Ever since the big bang, I hadn't been able to carry a watch and expect it to work like a watch.

"T-minus three minutes."

"So let's give up on finding his hideout. He'll be gone soon if he's still there at all. Where's he gonna hit that the police don't have covered already?"

Richie didn't answer right away and I let him think.

"The Larsen building," he said. The tallest skyscraper in downtown. It was as good a guess as anywhere else and plenty dramatic.

"Meet you there?" I asked.

"Yeah. On the roof."

I returned the shockvox to my pocket and went back into the subway. It was like my own private highway. A dark, spooky, dangerous highway, but I was fighting the clock on this one.

 **10.2 Balloon**

Copycat sat, watching his air compressor work. Gail's power was an easy one to copy. She made the smoky stuff, and could see in the dark. Way simpler than Marta's—Brickhouse's, he should have said. She had strength and durability, but there were also all kinds of sub-powers that kept her transformed body from falling apart or freezing up. Hers was more difficult to copy, and if he wasn't careful, the object he used wound up turning to stone like she had.

In front of him on the windswept roof, a weather balloon was slowly being pumped full of smoky darkness, filled by the air compressor he'd used his power on earlier.

Copycat aimed his weapon—a pump-action super-squirter water gun—and fired a white-hot blast of pure energy into the mostly inflated weather balloon.

The balloon deflated and its contents poured into the night sky, blotting out the stars. Copycat liked this part of the plan. It was understated, elegant. Ebon wasn't going to make some big announcement, he was just going to carry out his threat and wait for the humans to notice.

He looked up at the cloud just as lightning struck.

 **10.3 Thunderhead**

I got to the Larsen Building before Richie, though I could see him in the distance, a speck of fire hurtling down the street. A cloud of inky blackness was growing around the rooftop, hard to see against the night sky.

"Calling the cops," Richie radioed as I zoomed up the sheer face of the building.

"Rodger."

I reached out with my power, altering the charges between the air and the building and then let them go as I got to the top. Lightning struck and I landed on the edge of the flat roof, brandishing my fluorescent bulb.

One guy stood in the middle of the roof, next to a pair of battery-powered work lights, a mountain of heavy fabric and an air compressor spewing out black stuff. The guy was short, overweight, not white, but not black either. In his hands he had, of all things, a water gun, which he was swinging around to point at me.

I launched into the air again. Could water short out my power? I didn't want to find out this way.

I swung in a high arc over the roof, into the cloud itself. My fluorescent light went dim, but I didn't need to see to know what I was doing. I pushed on the stuff in the roof and pulled on the air compressor, rolling it off the edge, then let go. Maybe twenty seconds later, there was a quiet thud as the compressor hit the street.

I descended from the cloud to see Richie finally reach the roof. The guy spun and pointed his water gun at him and gave it a pump. It wasn't water in the gun, but something bright and white and burning. He missed Richie, but clipped the wing of the jetpack, sending him spiraling out into empty space.

Down on the ground, I might have had a hard time catching him, but here on top of a giant metal tower? Easy. I latched onto the jetpack about three floors down, hoping he hadn't exploded or anything.

"Gear?" I shouted into the shockvox as the guy ran to the edge to see what had happened to Richie.

"Fine," Richie answered. "Beam me up."

I landed and brought up my plate as a shield, ready for when the guy turned to face me, while I dragged Richie up the side of the building. But the guy wasn't turning around. He aimed his gun over the edge of the roof.

"Hey!" I shouted.

He turned and brought up a hand to shield his eyes from my light.

"Where's Ebon?" A quick check with my power told me we were the only two living things on the tower roof.

"He'll be here!" the guy shouted. He took aim with his water gun and edged towards me.

"Good," I said, like I was super confident I could take down Ebon all by myself. "Now put down the gun before someone gets hurt." To illustrate what I meant, I held up my free hand and created some pale, wiry arcs in the air around it.

For an answer, the guy fired at me again, but his aim wasn't great. The ball of white fire struck the corner of my plate and caromed up into the cloud, winking out. I remembered now where I'd seen something similar. On my very first outing as a hero, D-struct had destroyed a bus with blasts like those. Did this guy have the non-mutated version of D-struct's power? Then what was the gun for?

The guy fired again, missing me and the shield this time.

My aim was better. I threw my plate at him, pinned him down with it and charged after, ready to put him to sleep with a taser punch.

The guy pulled one arm free, brought something small and metal to his lips. A whistle. Before I could reach him or take control of the whistle, he blew it. A shockwave of sound bowled me over. I fell, catching myself on my hands and knees. I couldn't hear, I couldn't think, my head ready to split in two. It took all my concentration to keep the guy pinned under the plate.

The whistle echoed on and on and I clamped my hands over my ears.

Inside my pocket, the shockvox vibrated. Richie. I'd left him hanging once the guy started shooting at me. I dragged him the rest of the way up and he landed with a silent crunch. I couldn't focus on Richie and the plate at the same time though, and the guy overcame my magnets.

The pain abated for a second as he stood and drew a breath, but I didn't have time to recover before he started blowing again. I watched, unable to move as the guy picked up his gun, brought it to bear on me and advanced. Aim didn't matter if you got close enough.

He was too focused on me though, and too deafened by his whistle to notice Richie. A broken jetpack wing slammed into the side of his head and he went down. The silence that followed was almost palpable.

Richie dropped the wing and gave me a hand up. He might have said something, but I didn't know what it was. I rubbed my ears through my hood.

Richie made the hand gesture for _okay_ and I copied it. "Thanks, man."

He gave me a slap on the back and dropped to one knee to check on the guy, just like we'd been taught in health class. Feel for pulse, look for breathing, stabilize the head and neck. Then he pulled me away a few feet and made me sit down. He sat down next to me, saying something I couldn't make out through the ringing.

"Didn't your ears get hurt?" I asked, a little too loud, probably.

Richie shook his head, tapped the helmet.

"The police are coming?"

A nod, and a word that might have been _helicopters_ , or _yellow softeners_.

I looked over at the unconscious guy, realizing that Ebon and the rest of his gang were still on the loose. This could turn into a very long night.

 **10.3 The Army**

Ebon had timed it perfectly. He'd watched the cops make their rounds, got a feel for how quickly they could move, what their routes were and then, just after midnight, he had made a series of portals.

The first one was for the main party. Nightingale, Shiv and Talon portaled into the top floor of the Town Hall building. Nightingale released her darkness while Shiv and Talon took out the security and generally wrecked up the place.

The following portals were for D-struct and Brickhouse. They hopped across the city, taking out transformer stations one by one.

After they'd destroyed three or four of them, Ebon dropped them at the darkened police station and departed to deal with the incoming National Guard himself. He was in his element now and his power had grown since his last head-on encounter.

There were three Humvees and two military trucks cruising down the highway, almost at the city now. Ebon created a portal directly in front of the lead vehicle and sent it crashing into the public utilities building. The rest of the convoy followed in a cacophony of squealing brakes and explosions. The troopers who survived stumbled from their vehicles, dazed.

Orders were shouted, the injured were pulled free, flashlights and weapons were found and made ready. Ebon let them regain their bearings before he attacked. He wanted the semblance of a fair fight at least.

Once they had radioed for help, Ebon showed himself, rising up as a column of night in the flickering light of flames and flashlights.

"This is my city," he bellowed over the noise. The distressed soldiers stared at him. The closest one looked about ready to wet himself. "I want you gone!" He pointed at the nearest soldier and portaled him away into some hidden corner of the subway system.

Mouths dropped open, but the soldiers' leader managed to regain his cool.

"Fall back! Scalizi, get the lights on. Connors, Torre, move those men away from the trucks. McDougall, coordinates!" As he shouted he drew a pistol from a holster on his hip and started firing into Ebon's chest.

That hurt. Ebon melted into the ground, forming up again on the far side of the group. He made himself bigger this time and plucked up the nearest soldier like a boy might pick up a cat. Then, with a motion like a catapult, he threw the man down the street. He bounced once, rolled and came to a stop. He didn't get up.

"This is your warning," Ebon shouted, and portaled himself to a new position before they could fire on him again. "Drop your weapons and leave this city. For every shot you fire," a new portal and a new pair of screams cut short, "I kill another of your men." He moved to stand just behind the leader. "Your turn."

 **10.4 Second Wind**

"You feeling better?" Richie asked.

We were still on the roof, waiting for the helicopters. The ringing in my ears had died down, but my head still ached.

"Yeah. How's our friend?"

"Out of it. I tied him up. Not dead, thank God."

I nodded, relieved. I didn't know if I'd be able to handle killing a guy by accident either, even if he had been trying to attack me and destroy the city.

"How's your charge?"

"Pretty good." I was starting to run low, but as long as I could find an outlet, I'd be okay.

"Pretty good enough to get us both down safe, or pretty good to go help the cops take out Talon, Shiv and Inky?"

"I can fight, but charging is smart." I didn't want to, but I could. It wasn't like Richie could do much now without his pack.

"Can you get us inside?" Richie stood, gave me a hand up.

There was a door off to one side of the roof, in a little shed next to a water tank.

"Yeah, probably." I hadn't practiced lock-picking since getting that box from Alva, and didn't have the patience for it now. I folded up my plate and rammed it straight through the door. It left a long narrow hole, which I levered wider with the plate again. Then I reached through the hole and unlocked the ruined door sans powers. Richie handed me my fluorescent light and we went inside.

"You find an outlet," Richie said. "I'll see if I can't get us some more lights."

The door from the stairwell into the building proper was locked, but I persuaded the door open by means of a steel plate through the window. This let us into a hallway and then what I guessed was a party room—just a big empty space with a bar and a stage and windows that looked out on the city and the lake, obscured right now with black God-knows-what.

I unwound the severed extension cord from around my waist and jammed it into the nearest outlet. Meanwhile Richie found a folding table and some chairs and made himself a precarious tower so he could take down a light fixture.

"What's your plan?" I asked.

"Get some lights. If we're gonna fight Inky, we need all the illumination we can get."

"Where is she, do you know?" She certainly hadn't been on the roof, and Ebon hadn't shown yet, despite what the guy upstairs had said.

"Town hall building, 'cording to the cops. It's her and Shiv and Talon. D-struct and Brickhouse have been destroying transformers all over town, so power up now before they black out this neighborhood too. No sign of Ebon yet, but as long as he keeps shuffling the big guys around, he can't attack directly."

"What about the guy on the roof? Who was he?"

"No clue. Pretty cool power though, did you see?" Richie put the screwdriver in his mouth and wiggled the fixture loose. It was a classy mood lighting kind of thing, a long stainless steel rod with a dozen or so lights on it pointing in different directions.

"No not really. I thought he had the same power as D-struct for a second, but then he had that whistle…"

"Uh-huh," Richie said around the screwdriver. "'E 'ad D-ruct's an' Dalon's an' Ingy's." He set the light fixture on the table and climbed down, taking the screwdriver out of his mouth. "He's imbuing inanimate objects with other people's powers."

"So we pretty much took out half of Ebon's crew right now," I said, feeling badass.

"Yeah, except he was just one guy. We had him outnumbered."

Richie dragged the table a few feet and climbed up again. Once he had completed this process a couple more times he busted out a roll of duct tape and taped the four fixtures together so it looked like an asterix. He used just about the whole roll so there was no way the thing was going to come apart.

"Ta-da." He stood the thing on end so it looked like a wheel without the rim, about six feet tall. "You ready to go?"

I felt shaky and kinda sick, but I had enough juice for another fight at least. I pulled the extension cord out of the socket and stood up. "Yeah."

"Good. I'm gonna take the stairs. Can you take this out through the window?"

"Sure." I smashed the window with my plate and flew outside with Richie's contraption. The blackness was like fog, only darker and more opaque. The wind from earlier in the evening had calmed, and wisps of the stuff drifted around the building, making it hard sometimes to see my hand in front of my face. I wondered for a moment if I really should be breathing this stuff in, then figured it was kinda too late to start worrying about that now.

I landed next to Richie, who was checking on the power duplicator guy, wrapping more duct tape around his wrists and ankles.

"Light 'em up?" Richie said.

I levitated the wheel of lights over my head and gave it some juice. The darkness retreated, but I couldn't tell if the light was actually destroying it or not.

"Shut it off," Richie said, and I did.

"Did it do anything?" I asked.

"I dunno. What we really need is UV, I think. Can you get us to the town hall building? It might be a while before the helicopters."

He still had the remains of the jetpack rig on, so I could carry him with that. "Yeah, sure. How do I get there?"

Richie put one hand to his helmet like it was a phone. "Houston? Directions?"

My shockvox buzzed and I answered it. A few minutes later Richie and me were landing just outside the old brick office building where the mayor and some other city officials worked.

The whole block was dark. Unexplored cave dark, not just power outage dark. More black smoke billowed from the broken windows on the upper floor of the building. The police were there, shining headlights and spotlights at the building.

"What's the status?" Richie asked the nearest of the officers, a tall black woman with a radio in hand.

She blinked, a little weirded out maybe that a couple of kids were asking what was going on like they actually expected her to answer. She glanced at me. "Static, and…"

"Gear." Richie held out his hand. "I build stuff. We can help if you let us know what's happening."

She shook his hand. "SWAT team went in three minutes ago. No contact yet with the Metabreed." She waved one of her colleagues over and passed him the radio.

Richie nodded. "Static, can you find them from out here?"

"No problem." I was way jumped up, and with the power out there wouldn't be a whole lot of interference. I closed my eyes and reached out with my electro-sense. One group of five people down on the first floor. Two on the third floor, being pretty active, and one more on the top floor, standing still.

I turned to the officer. "You got pen and paper?"

The officer handed me her police notebook. "I heard you found that dog in the fire," she said. "It was on the news."

"Uh-huh," I said, drawing a map of the building as I checked on the Metabreed's positions again.

"Sorry, it's been a long night," Richie said.

I handed the officer her notebook. "They're on the top two floors. Shiv and Talon down here, and Inky up there."

The officer smiled for a fraction of a second. "We've been calling her DG," she said, and then relayed my information to the team inside. I felt them change direction and start moving more purposefully towards the two bang babies.

"I hear Ebon _wasn't_ up the tower?" the officer said.

I shook my head and Richie jumped in with the story. The way he told it, he made it sound like we'd trounced the guy no problem, even though in reality things could have gone very different very easily.

I picked up the wheel of lights and my epoxy'd fluorescent bulb and turned to the officer. "While your guys get Shiv and Talon, I'm going after Inky. DG. Whatever."

"Yo, not without your partner," Richie said.

I opened my mouth to remind him that Gear without any gear was just a kid in a helmet, but that wasn't really true, or fair. He hadn't needed special powers to whang that guy on the head. And it wasn't like Inky was particularly dangerous in and of herself. She just created a hazardous situation.

"Course not." I offered him my fist and we bumped. He winced and shook his hand out afterwards though.

"Oh, one thing," Richie said, addressing the officer. " You got a spare pair of earplugs, in case we run into Talon?"

The officer reached into her cruiser and handed me a pair of heavy headphone earmuff things. "For you, I'm assuming."

"Yeah." I took them. "Thanks, officer…"

"Davis."

I looped the headphones around my neck, since I kinda wanted to be able to hear stuff, gave Davis and the other officers a salute and launched Richie and myself up through a busted fourth-floor window. The wheel of light dragged behind us, our own personal spotlight.

There was a lot of noise and crashing going on downstairs, so our landing was quiet by comparison. I didn't think the SWAT team had even got to the third floor yet, so it was probably just the loony duo smashing up the place.

"Where is she?" Richie said in a low voice at my shoulder.

I reached out, feeling for that little electric hum, then grabbed Richie and threw us both to the ground as Inky swang a baseball bat at his head. With the dark, she'd practically come out of nowhere.

She'd expected to hit, and her swing threw her off balance. I heard and felt her shriek, stumble and recover her footing. The dark was so thick, even the light in my hand did no me good. She had to be able to see us, the way she'd come running at us just now, and if she could see us, she was gonna swing again.

But I wasn't totally blind. I could feel where she was and I had the smarts to guess what her next move would be.

My plate caught the blow from above with a sound like a gong.

As she recovered, I stood, pouring power into my free hand. At a thought, the plate slid up to protect my face and I reached for the bat. A spark arced and the bat exploded with a crack like a gunshot. Maybe I should have put on those headphones.

I coughed, feeling weak at the loss of power and then Richie was on his feet, grappling with her.

"Let her go!" I wanted to tase her, but I couldn't see enough to hit her without getting Richie as well.

Richie grunted and hung on, or maybe she was hanging onto him now. I couldn't handle the dark anymore, so I brought around the light fixture wheel and powered it up. This only served to make the black mist more visible. Wisps of white and green danced in my vision, about as substantial as mist themselves, though I knew from my power that Richie and Inky were almost within arm's reach.

And then there was a shiver. Just the merest split second that gave me time to grab onto the wheel with one hand as the floor opened up beneath me.

"Ebon!" I shouted. The emptiness beneath me grew and I felt Richie and Inky slip.

"No!" I grabbed ahold of the remains of Richie's jetpack, but with the floor gone, there wasn't a whole lot I had to work with to combat gravity.

I was way better at sideways than up though, and I flung the three of us across the room away from the portal. Then I thought, why stop there? I forced a broken window open wide enough to let the wheel through and spun down to the street away from Ebon with Richie and Inky in tow. I was _not_ gonna face him in that pitch dark.

We landed hard in front of the parked cruisers—we'd left with a lot of momentum and not a lot of space for me to apply the brakes. I coughed and groaned. No broken bones.

"Taser!" Richie shouted, already on his feet. Inky was on her back, in worse shape than either of us. This was my first real look at her—a skinny kid younger than me even, with long straight hair and freckles just like in the police sketch.

I made an awkward lunge across the gap and my fingers brushed her arm, just enough contact to send over a short jolt. She convulsed once and went still. I sat up on my knees, breathing hard as Richie checked her like he had the guy on the tower. The next moment officer Davis was next to him and they were lifting her to her feet as a second officer got out the cuffs.

I got up, felt around me with my power. Talon was shrieking up on the third floor and there were flashes of lavender light that had to be Shiv. Gunfire too as the SWAT guys made contact.

And then Ebon appeared, oozing out from under a cruiser like a bubble in a lava lamp.

"You have something that belongs to me," he said, his voice cutting through the background noise like a school bell through a lecture.

The officers on the ground turned to face him as one, sidearms coming out of holsters faster than I'd have thought possible.

I felt more than saw him reach for the girl, who was already sitting in the backseat of the car, her hands behind her back, her head limp on her neck.

"Yo!" I shouted at him. "Blob-face!" I really should have thought up some witty insults ahead of time, I thought as I positioned the light fixtures over his head.

Ebon turned to face me. I was almost surprised to see he _did_ have eyes, like two pieces of obsidian embedded in black rubber. I dug deep for every last drop of power and took control of the lights. All of them. Street lights, spot lights, the dome lights inside the cruiser, all of them groaning and protesting as I pushed and dragged and bent metal to focus the beams on the column of shadow crouching over the car.

The shadow wavered, shrank to the size of a man, condensed into limbs and a face and cornrow hair. He leaned on the car and stumbled as I pushed it away from him, spinning it so the headlights faced him.

He was on the ground now, ringed in light. I blinked, green and red spots flashing on the insides of my eyelids. Somehow I'd ended up on the ground too, sitting on my knees with one hand braced against the ground, the other outstretched in front of me.

Everything felt weird and distant, distorted. I wondered for a second how someone had got the headphones over my ears and whether that darkness on the edge of my vision was from Ebon or Inky.

 **10.5 Hospital Room**

I woke up in the hospital with a headache and an IV in my arm. Richie sat next to my bed, still in his Gear outfit, his helmeted head propped against the wall.

I blinked and sat up. Officer Davis was standing in the doorway, keeping half an eye on the room and half an eye on the hall, where it looked like all kinds of problems were going down.

"Ri- Gear, you awake?" I said, catching myself at the last second.

The helmet rotated a fraction of an inch. "Yeah. How you doing?"

"Let's not do that again, okay?"

Richie snorted. "Deal."

"What time is it?"

"'Bout four in the morning."

"What happened?"

Richie took a deep breath. "Lots of stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Well, the media caught you being taken through the ER and really, really wants an interview. Also, I'm like ninety percent certain somebody leaked some drone footage with you and me fighting the guy from the tower, who is called Copycat, by the way, and I have a feeling we're gonna get some pretty mixed reviews, seeing as we kinda broke into Larsen Tower and stole some stuff, and how I brained the guy. And I'm really glad you're awake 'cause it won't be long before _someone_ notices we're gone, but I don't know if the doctors will let us just leave without-"

"Whoa. Too much." I swung my feet off the edge of the bed, realizing someone had taken my shoes off. "Let's just get home before it gets light out." Wincing, I picked up my boots and put them on. "They got Ebon?"

"Yeah, they got him, he's-"

From the doorway, Officer Davis gave a significant cough.

"been gotten," Richie finished.

I was way too tired to figure out what that meant, so I let it slide.

"One hundred percent thanks to you," Richie added.

With a grimace, I pulled the needle out of my arm, a little bit of blood and saline dripping on the floor. "Yo, officer." I took a couple steps her direction, held out my hand. "Thanks." For what, I wasn't really sure. Standing guard? Doing her job? I felt like I had to say something, and that was just the first thing that came to mind.

She smiled, nodded, shook my hand. "I'm going to visit the ladies' room. You boys better still be here when I get back." She winked and left, closing the door behind her. Richie offered me a folding chair, which didn't fly as well as a steel plate did, but it got us home. Tomorrow Richie could fill me in, but for now, all I wanted was some rest.

 **10.6 Mixed Feelings**

Robert sat by himself on the couch. Sharon had gone to be with Adam, and Virgil and Richie were… out.

He had checked his son's room of course, the minute he'd heard what was going on, and neither of the boys was anywhere to be found. He'd watched with horror as the reports came in—power outages across the city, attacks on public buildings, the destruction of an entire corps of National Guardsmen. And in the middle of it all were "Static" and his partner "Gear." Richie's costume hid his identity better than Virgil's did, and Robert might have even called it safer if he hadn't had a rocket strapped to his back.

"No!" he'd shouted at the screen when he saw his boy wheeled out the back of an ambulance and into the hospital, and wasn't reassured when the reporter had claimed he had passed out from exhaustion.

That had been a while ago, and now Robert was sitting on the couch, head in his hands, the TV on with the sound off. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to drive straight to the hospital, see with his own eyes that Virgil was okay. But if he went, would he be putting his son at risk? Static had enemies, a lot of enemies after tonight, and if they found out who he was… Home wouldn't be safe for Virgil anymore.

At least, that was what Robert was trying to tell himself. He was tired, not thinking clearly.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a bang upstairs. Virgil's room. Robert leaped to his feet, ran up the stairs.

"Virgil!" He couldn't help himself from shouting.

Virgil stuck his head out the door, trying to hide the collar of a blue and yellow coat. "Pops? You up?" He made a show of yawning, or maybe not. He looked exhausted.

Robert wanted to grab his son, hold him tight. But if he did, Virgil would knew that he knew, and this was not the opportune time. Neither of them had the energy to deal with that right now. It was enough to know Virgil was safe.

"Fell asleep watching the news. Looks like everything's gonna be okay."

Virgil nodded, blinked slowly. "Yeah, looks like. 'Night." He closed the door and left Robert in the hall, alone.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Whee! That was a fun chapter to write. If only research papers were that much fun.

Next week: the consequences of Ebon's attack and seeing what the other characters are up to


	11. Analyses

**11 Analyses**

Batman turns off the TV, thinking he should have taken Dakota's police chief's plea for help more seriously.

 **11.1 The Next Morning**

I woke up around noon, groggy and sore, but otherwise fine. I panicked for a second, realizing I should have been in school, but then figured that even if school hadn't been canceled, I deserved a day off.

I changed into some clean clothes, checked with my power to make sure no one else was home, and went downstairs, shockvox in hand.

"Hey, Richie, you there?" I asked as I made myself some breakfast.

Pops had left a note on the table, so I put down the cereal and read the message.

 _Virgil, there's waffles in the freezer. Enjoy your long weekend._

 _love, Pops_

Sure enough, there were waffles in the freezer, and a thing of chopped strawberries in the fridge. Way to go, Pops. I was taking the waffles out of the toaster when Richie called me back. Each of the 'voxes had a yellow LED that would light up if I missed a call from Richie or vise-versa, and a red one if Alva was trying to reach us for an emergency situation.

The shockvox buzzed. "Yo, V. How you doing?"

"Can't complain." I guess I could have complained—I was pretty sore—but I didn't want to sound like a baby in front of Richie. "You?"

"According to my bruises, I made some pretty bad decisions last night. Hey, I'm guessing you just got up, so you want me to fill you in?"

"Lay it on me," I said, sticking waffles in the toaster. "School's canceled, right?"

"Yeah, the power's in and out, probably not coming back on for a day or two. I went over to Frieda's earlier, 'cause she's got power at her house. We watched the news for a while. The cops still have Ebon at the hospital-"

"The hospital?"

"Gotta keep him lit up, right? The hospital's the only place with consistent electricity right now. But the rest of them, Talon, Copycat, Inky, all them, they're in jail with all kinds of super special security and stuff. They've even got a guy from the Justice League to come and make sure they can't escape."

"Wow." I stuck my head in the fridge, and sure enough, there was a can of whipped cream in the door.

"They found most of the National Guard guys too. Ebon only killed a couple of them, the rest he portaled into the subway. No one's set a date for the public service yet though."

"Oh," I said, and we both sat quiet for a second. I hadn't known anyone had actually died last night. Would I have been able to take down Ebon if I had? I'd known he was dangerous, but this…

"Nothing we coulda done," Richie said. "We were fighting Copycat then."

Great. Now I felt guilty too, realizing if I'd been there, I coulda saved them.

"The mayor wants to offer you a medal, and the media still wants an interview, but I don't think you should do it unless we get something to change your voice. You know, identity stuff."

"Mm-hmm," I agreed around a mouthful of whipped cream.

"I have a feeling Alva's gonna want you to do something too, but that's just a hunch. I guess that's it. I'm gonna be in the lab all day. You should stop by."

I told him I would and moved into the living room. Sure enough, channel three was showing footage from last night and Shelly Sandoval was filling up air time saying again and again how Dakota's resident superhero had almost singlehandedly saved the city from total chaos.

Despite all the bad stuff that had happened, I suddenly felt pretty dang good about myself.

 **11.2 Contractually Obligated**

I felt dirty. Not just because the bright lights of the camera studio were making me sweat, but because Alva was forcing me to do something I didn't totally feel comfortable with. All I had to do was fly around a little in front of the green screen, looking confused, then pretend to talk with Alva and act like he'd fixed everything. But there was a reason I'd quit acting camp. I just wasn't good at pretending.

"Wow," I said to the camera man. A voice actor would dub over my words later to protect my identity once the ad aired. "I don't know what I would have done if Alva Industries' camera drones hadn't been there. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have known where to go and I wouldn't have been able to keep Dakota safe. Ask your police department today if camera drones are right for your city."

"Cut!" the director called. "Static, that was good, but let's do one more. Can you try to be more upbeat this time? I wanna see you smile more."

I grimaced and faced the cameraman again.

"Good! Now more happy, less toothy. You're the good guy, not a shark! Ready? Five, four, three..."

I went through my lines again, promising myself I wouldn't let Richie know I'd done this.

 **11.3 The Appointment**

Francis had spent the weekend moving out of his parents' house and into the boat. His dad had finally come home from his business trip and had not been happy to find out that neither the big bang nor Ebon's attack on the city had been a hoax, and he'd been downright pissed to find out that Francis was kinda sorta mixed up in it and liable to burn the house down.

"You're eighteen, and it's about time you started acting like an adult," he had said as he called up the insurance company to upgrade their policy. "And for God's sake, wash that dye out of your hair."

Francis hadn't wanted to explain that red and yellow was his new natural color, and ended up getting in a fight over what his dad's parental rights were now that he was eighteen and out of the house. But his dad had the ace up his sleeve of course—the threat to cut off Francis's allowance.

" _You made the best decision,"_ Maria said after he came back from the barber. She ruffled his dyed brown hair with a light breeze.

The next day Francis got up early, groaning and cursing at the alarm clock. He walked up to the marina bathroom for a shower, collected a grumpy Maria from the boat and drove them to the shrink's office.

"Just give it a chance," he said, trying to convince himself too. "The doc said this is the best thing we can do till someone figures out a cure."

Maria just sighed, and Francis glanced over at the waver in the air, wanting to see his girl's face so bad.

The receptionist at the shrink's office looked a little confused when he asked for two copies of the paperwork, but didn't say anything about it. She'd probably seen some pretty weird stuff now that her boss was a bang baby shrink.

Once Francis was done filling out forms, the shrink called them into her office. As he stood though, Francis felt a pull on his arm.

" _I want to go by myself,"_ Maria whispered.

"Sure thing, babe." He sat down again in the waiting room chair, relieved. He hadn't wanted to do this any more than Maria did. "I'll wait."

Maria ruffled his hair again and he put his feet up on the table, leaned his head back and tried to get a couple minutes of shut eye.

" _Paco?"_ Maria said into his ear an hour and a half later.

Francis looked up from his magazine, mouth open in surprise. A yellow sun dress and a big floppy hat floated next to him. He smiled.

"Looking good, babe."

 _"Thanks."_

The shrink, a tiny woman with short silver hair, caught his eye. "Same time next week?"

Francis nodded and got up, then said something to Maria he knew he was probably gonna regret. "So, you wanna go shopping or something?"

 **11.4 Intrinsic Power**

It was Monday, but school wasn't gonna start up again until Tuesday, so I decided to split my time between hanging out with Daisy at the center and chilling as Static at the Alva lab with Richie. It was only Richie and a couple techs working on things, nowhere near as crazy and hectic as it had been during Ebon's attack. Way less stressful than the recording studio yesterday.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked, looking at Richie's dubious new project. Rocket skates. A jetpack was cool, but these were an explosion waiting to happen.

"Of course," Richie said. The LED face he'd wired into his helmet rolled its eyes. He'd rigged that up after I'd mentioned how it felt weird talking to a helmet.

"I have to keep Backpack on my back, so there's no space for a jetpack too. Besides, it was way too heavy. I can't run around carrying fifty pounds of metal."

I picked up one of the green and white skates. It was still pretty heavy.

"I get that, but how are you gonna control where you're going and, like, not blow up?"

"Excellent points, Professor Static," Richie said, clearing his throat. The LED lights assumed a serious face, but I had a feeling he was actually smiling, getting a kick out of proving me wrong.

"The skates are mainly controlled by Backpack. They've got sensors BP can pick up on wirelessly and it'll make all the small adjustments for stable flight. I can use my power to do it too, but then that'd be the only thing I could focus on, so I'd rather delegate.

"As for not blowing up, this is actually really cool. Alva's got this chemical company and they developed a fuel for some of the bigger Alva bots, ones that get used off the grid. Only it's not so much a fuel as a reactant that'll take the hydrogen out of water and turn it into rocket fuel, and then burn it back into water and smoke. That means I don't have to carry a ton of flammable, toxic liquid everywhere, just some water and a little reactant stored in the skates. Which have got emergency shut-offs and stuff just in case. So really, these are way safer than any jetpack."

"If you're sure," I said, not totally convinced. Alva didn't have the greatest safety track record, and neither did Richie, but I guess if you want to be a hero, or sponsor one, you have to accept a lot of risk. And besides, if Richie did fall out of the sky, I could probably catch him.

"Tell you what, why don't we go test it?" Richie suggested. "I need some fresh air."

"Yeah, okay." Despite any misgivings I might have had, it wasn't like I was going to give up the chance to go flying.

Richie's LED face turned into an animation with exclamation points and fireworks and he leaned against the work table to strap on the skates.

"So, why skates and not just boots?" I asked as he attached a pair of water bottles to his legs.

"Because skating is faster than running, duh."

I snorted and picked up my new steel plate Alva had provided to replace the one I'd lost during the fight with Ebon and jogged after Richie as he rolled out of the lab.

"Have you tried these before?" I asked.

"Nope," Richie said, his helmet smiling. "Backpack, launch."

The robot beeped in response and Richie literally jumped into the sky. I had to pour on the juice to catch up.

We did a couple circles around the block, me a few feet off the ground, him laughing like a madman far above. Once Richie had calmed down and was starting to run low on water we stopped and landed on top of one of the taller downtown buildings with a view of the lake. Not the Larsen building though, which still had some of Inky's miasma lingering in and around it.

"I could build you a pair," Richie said. We were out of view of the street, so he took off the helmet and set it on the edge of the roof beside him. "I think Backpack could handle the extra flight path."

"I got my plate," I said with a shrug. I didn't really want to be dependent on a robot that was liable to break in my presence.

Richie nodded, pushed his glasses up his nose. "So, I've been thinking..."

"Yeah?" I said, wondering if all our conversations were going to start out with _I've been thinking_ from now on.

"About Copycat. He was able to copy powers from the rest of the Metabreed into objects."

"Right," I said, wondering where he was going with this.

"Which is weird. It's like... magic or something. Like those powers are their own separate entities, not intrinsic parts of the people they belong to."

"Well, they're not," I said. "We got them from the gas leak at the big bang."

"Right, but the gas mutated us and created the physiological changes that give us our powers. Or, you know, just straight up mutated without the powers."

"I bet it has to do with how much gas you got," I said. Neither me or Richie had got very much, and we hadn't mutated at all.

"Maybe. But that's not really something we can test, even if we had a sample of the gas."

I almost asked why, then realized. Who would volunteer to get gassed? There were way more bang babies who had gotten mutated than not, so anyone crazy enough to risk it probably wouldn't be responsible enough to handle any powers they might get.

"But like I was saying, our powers are, or _should_ be, intrinsic to us as individuals, just like our genes. It's just a much a part of you as your face or your sense of humor or what color skittles you like best."

"Yellow."

"Red. But do you see the problem with Copycat's power?"

I looked out at the lake, watching the patches of dark and light water shift and change. Was it from different things mixing with the water, like algae or pollution or dirt? It couldn't be from the tide mixing up sediment since lakes don't have tides, but there had to be something that made it change color like that.

"It shouldn't work," I eventually said. "I've got something in my cells that builds up electricity just like Talon has something in her voice box that lets her make those blasts. But Copycat doesn't." Richie might have been able to replicate my power or Talon's given enough time and materials, but that was different from taking a regular coach's whistle and imbibing it with sound blasts.

"Exactly. So that means the way I was thinking of powers—as expressions of our altered physiologies—is wrong."

"Then what are they?" I asked.

"I don't know. But I think it's safe to assume that our powers are separate from ourselves, even for people like Talon who can't change back, or Hotstreak, who can't control it."

I thought about it for a while, trying to figure it out by myself. I was still smart, even if I didn't have a super brain.

"So what if the mutations are just uncontrollable transformation powers?" D-struct was the perfect example of someone with an almost controllable transformation power—he could change back sometimes—while Shiv had full control over his transformations.

Richie nodded. "It's a good theory. But that still doesn't answer what powers _are._ "

This was the point where I'da expected Richie to shrug it off, move on to the next thing, but he kept on staring off into space, frowning.

 **11.5 Rounds**

Dr. Lobner had cleared out her schedule as much as she could—pawning off patients and cutting out lunch breaks—in order to take on the new batch of inmates at the Dakota High Security Penitentiary.

Throughout the years, she had worked with a wide variety of people with a wide variety of problems. Soldiers coming back from conflict, victims of abuse, survivors from tragic accidents and all kinds of people with mental and physical disabilities. Of all the psychiatrists associated with the Winona County health care system, she was the most experienced, the most qualified.

No one could have prepared her for these cases, but she knew that if they were going to get help, it was up to her to give it.

A guard let her into the private room where she was going to meet the first of her new patients.

The girl shuffled in, wearing flip flops and a prison uniform modified to accommodate her over long arms.

"Please, take a seat," Dr Lobner said, gesturing to the plastic chair opposite her. "I'm Doctor Lobner, but you can call me doc, or Lobner, or Anne, whatever you're most comfortable with. What should I call you?"

The girl sat on the chair, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, like she wanted to be small and unnoticed.

"They caught Ebon?" she asked, avoiding the question. She had a slight accent, Colombian maybe.

"He's in custody, yes." Dr Lobner had discussed this with her colleagues and the prison officials, and they had decided that it would be best if her new patients knew what had happened to their former boss.

"How?" the girl asked. "He'll escape."

"They're nullifying his powers with electric light," Dr Lobner said.

The girl shook her head, closing her huge golden eyes.

"You think he'll break out?"

"He's smart, doc. Even if you put him on the sun or something he'd still find a way to get out."

"Do you want him to escape?" Dr Lobner asked. She almost held back, not wanting to probe too much on their first visit, but the girl seemed willing to respond to prompts.

"He's gonna escape, it doesn't matter if I want him to or not," the girl said, raising her voice now. Dr Lobner gave the one-way mirror a reassuring glance. They couldn't hear what was being said, but they were monitoring the decibel level in the meeting room.

"What makes you say that?"

The girl hugged her knees tighter. "When Ebon says he's gonna do something, he does it."

Dr Lobner nodded, made a note in her tablet, more as a punctuation in the conversation than as a useful reminder for herself.

"How did you meet Ebon?" she asked.

By the end of the hour, Dr Lobner had a fairly clear picture of Ebon's strategy of manipulation. If this girl, Teresa, was any indicator, Ebon had played upon the insecurities of his victims, tried to convince them that what had happened to them was not a tragic disaster they needed to overcome, but a blessing that set them above the rest of society. Whether Ebon himself believed this or not was still a mystery, but at least now Dr Lobner had a basis from which to work.

As she waited for her next patient to be brought in, she made a note to review the relevant literature on the recovery of ex cult followers.

 **11.6 Water and Fire**

"This was the doc's idea?" Francis asked. Maria stood before him, sort of, on the forward deck of the boat. She had used her power to pick up twenty or thirty gallons of lake water and hold it in the shape of a girl in a dress.

The girl shape nodded. " _She said if I make myself a physical body, it'll help me feel normal again."_

She sounded happy, for the first time since the big bang, so Francis didn't rag on her for choosing scuzzy marina water.

"So we bought all those clothes last week for nothing?"

 _"You keep burning the clothes. This is safer."_

Francis tugged at the charred collar of his t-shirt. If he wasn't paying attention, things just kinda smoldered around him.

 _"And you told me water makes it easier to turn it off."_

This was true. Water seemed to just suck the heat right out of him, way better than extinguisher foam or anything else the fire department had thrown at him.

"It's not too heavy?" Francis asked. A few weeks ago, it had been hard for her to pick up a blanket. Now she was holding, what, a couple hundred pounds of water?

" _Are you saying I'm fat?"_ Maria's water sculpture said. The mouth even moved and everything.

Francis just looked at her, at a loss for words. He'd wanted to see her face, and now he could, kind of. The water sculpture was just a puppet Maria was controlling, but she was making it sound like she wanted him to pretend that it really was her.

 _"It's a joke,"_ she said, smiling.

"Yeah, man, I know." She was more real now, but it only made it more obvious just how far they had to go.

 **11.7 Private Eye**

EJ met Detective Sawyer at the park overlooking the marina. It was a beautiful spring day, almost three weeks since the start of his fall down the rabbit hole, and maybe a week since he'd hired the pro. The two of them sat on a park bench, watching the joggers and the skaters go by.

"What did you find?" EJ hoped it was something useful. He was paying Sawyer out of his own pocket and the guy wasn't cheap.

"I found the building," Sawyer said, taking a folder out of his briefcase. He didn't hand it over right away though. "I'm giving this to you as a professional, but as a moral, reasonable man, I have to ask that you leave this alone. Hand it over to the feds if you want, but don't go poking around. Understand?"

EJ took the folder. "It's that bad?" He wasn't entirely surprised that his company had done some shady dealings, but if a PI was telling him to think about getting the feds involved...

"It's not worth risking your neck for, believe you me."

EJ opened the folder. The first page was a blueprint for the mysterious building. Or maybe not so mysterious. He recognized the layout of the above ground floors, but underground, that was something new.

"My payment?" Sawyer said.

Without taking his eyes off the paper, EJ reached into his breast pocket and handed the pre-prepared check to the PI. The man grunted, accepted the check and left without another word.

EJ hardly noticed. The prints in his hands were for the Alva Labs here in Dakota. Not the office building across the street from the museum, but the laboratory annex next door. Above ground, the building housed two floors of robotics labs and offices, not exactly secret. But down, under the basement...

EJ didn't know what to make of it. Two dozen or so tiny little rooms all facing a central hall on the first floor down and a big empty space below that, like a parking garage. Storage and more labs? EJ brought the page closer to his nose, squinting at the specs writ small. Blast proof doors with keypad locks, lead lined walls, soundproofing everywhere. Each little room could be hermetically sealed from all the rest, its contents buried, drowned and set on fire all at once. The big room looked like something out of a cold war chemist's wet dream. It could probably withstand a nuclear blast inside or out.

Alva was building something, but what?

 **11.8 Locks**

EJ might not have had the creative genius of some of the upper echelons of Alva Industries, but he was savvy to the way the company worked, and a fair hand at computer programming. With a little ingenuity and a couple favors called in from the IT department, it hadn't been too hard to access the security codes for the lab building. At least for the upper floors.

A little research taught him that the locks on all high security Alva facilities were wired directly to Alva's personal security force, and that once triggered, all the locks would freeze until one of maybe five or six authorized individuals entered the override code. The flaw in the system however, was that once the override code was entered, _all_ the locks got reset with new individual unlock codes. As part of the reset procedure, each lock had to test its mechanism. It had to lock and unlock. The test took a fraction of a second, but if you were ready for it...

EJ didn't know if he was making the best decision. The wise thing, the law abiding thing would have been to do what the PI had suggested. Either go to the feds or ignore the whole mess. But he didn't want to do either of those things. His curiosity, his obsession now, wouldn't let him drop it, and after so many years, he had a certain twisted loyalty to the company, even if they didn't deserve it.

No, he had to figure out this mystery on his own. It wasn't like anyone in the know was going to spill the beans to him. Some childish part of his mind entertained the fantasy of going to the CEO with his discovery and getting some sudden, major promotion as a "thanks for all your hard work, please don't make this public" kind of thing.

EJ checked his watch. Ferret had flipped the breaker two minutes ago. Long enough for EJ to hook up his laptop to the first floor security camera without getting seen. He counted down from sixty and the power came back on. Thanks to Ebon, no one would think twice about the mini outage.

The program downloaded and EJ set the cameras to loop the footage of the next three minutes for the rest of the night.

EJ waited three minutes and then called his accomplice on the cheap prepaid cell phone he'd bought the day before. The bang baby answered immediately.

"We're good to go," EJ said in a low voice. "You boys move on to the next step."

Ferret mumbled something in his deformed approximation of English and the line went quiet. EJ crept down to the discrete high security door next to the janitor's closet. The locks on the two doors looked the same, but one barred passage into secret realms, while the other protected mops and window cleaner.

EJ waited, imagining the scene next door. Right about now, Ferret's companion Kangor would be breaking down the front doors to the main Alva building while Ferret himself climbed the wall and attempted to break into the CEO's personal office.

He wouldn't succeed, of course, but he would trip the high security lock system.

EJ stared at the lock, his palms sweaty. How long would it be before the security detail caught the two bang babies and Alva reset the locks? Ten minutes? An hour? All night? EJ closed one eye and then the other to avoid blinking and missing his one chance.

His feet were aching by the time the LED on the lock finally blinked. EJ turned the knob between the first and second blinks and he was in. A piece of wood under the door made his escape later possible.

Lightheaded from the relief, EJ descended into the secret basement. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, the same as in any business setting. At the bottom of the stairs though, EJ could see that he was about as far from a normal business setting as he could get.

Heavy steel doors lined both sides of the U-shaped hall, airtight and impenetrable. At the middle part of the U, one of the doors was different from the rest, shinier and newer. EJ stopped to look at it and listen, but there was nothing else remarkable about it and nothing to hear. Though given the amount and quality of soundproofing, there could have easily been a brass band on the other side of the steel.

EJ moved on to the far end of the U. The stairs down to the hidden lab were there, unprotected by high security locks. EJ supposed it was assumed that if you had clearance for the first level, you had to have clearance for the second, and that locks like those were expensive.

The door swung open silently on expensive hinges and the lights flicked on automatically. EJ hoped that whatever program that was running the motion sensor connected to the lights didn't timestamp its activity.

He blinked and observed the room from the doorway. The huge space was dominated by a giant glass cylinder about fifteen feet across, fenced off with ropes and warnings. An airlock was built into the side of it, next to a rack of full body space suits. The glass was tinted dark green, hiding whatever was inside.

EJ walked around the structure, tempted to go inside so badly. But he wouldn't get his answers that way.

Banks of computers circled the cylinder and EJ chose one at random. He woke up the dormant machine and plugged in his laptop. The program that ran next wasn't one he had built himself, but rather something he had bought off a shady website that now had access to a canceled credit card under a false name.

The password flashed across the middle of the screen, a series of meaningless letters and numbers. Easy as that, he was in. EJ opened a likely looking file on the big computer and dragged and dropped it onto the laptop. Five more followed, with an estimated download time of two hours. EJ set the laptop on the chair and let it work while he went to examine the rest of the lab.

Besides the cylinder in the center, there were half a dozen stations equipped to handle toxic or hazardous chemicals around the lab. Big airtight boxes with gloves built in for manipulating contaminated materials, hoods with high power vents at the ready to suck the air out of the lab itself.

Hidden behind a partition, another door led to a massive underground vault, like a parking garage, two or three thousand feet square. Besides some damage to the walls and floor, the room was empty, boring. EJ closed the door.

His perfunctory survey done, EJ turned his attention to the cylinder. A pair of security cameras were trained on it, but they would be looped, just like the rest of the ones in the system. Other than that, there were no security measures he could discern. Just the safety equipment.

At first glance, EJ was stymied by how to open the airlock. There were no handles, no buttons on the outside of the cylinder, no clever voice command microphone things.

"How," EJ asked the empty lab, and then realized. Usually, there would be a whole lab full of people working here. The guy in the space suit didn't need to be the one to open the door. EJ went back to the computer and started up the first likely looking program on the desktop. A little monkeying around and he figured out the open and close sequence for the airlock.

EJ donned one of the space suits over his regular clothes and ran the open and close sequence again, then sprinted to squeeze into the airlock before it closed on him.

"Ha, ha!" EJ smiled to himself triumphantly. No secret was safe from him.

Everything was green and distorted between the glass walls of the cylinder and the plastic helmet of the space suit, but EJ's eyes adjusted and he found himself facing a semicircle of white painted canisters like propane tanks, each with half a dozen meters attached to it, giving information about the temperature, pressure, mass, et cetera, of the tank's contents.

"Huh." Finally it was all coming together. Whatever was in these tanks, this was what ChemTrail was hiding.

EJ looked around for something to take a sample in. Data was one thing, but a sample of the illicit substance brought his game to a whole new level.

There was a rack of lab tools to one side of the airlock, complete with rubber capped test tubes and hoses that looked like they would connect to the metered canisters. EJ selected a hose and a test tube and took them to the nearest canister. The hose connected to the aperture at the top of the container with a satisfying click and EJ wrestled the other end over the end of the test tube, tugging and stretching until he was sure the seal was good. Then with a flick of a switch on the base of the canister, a dark, heavy gas filled the tube. EJ waited until the gas in the tube was fully opaque before flipping the switch again and disconnecting the hose. A little gas escaped during the interval between unplugging the hose and getting the cap back on the test tube, but EJ figured that was why they had the airlock and the space suits.

EJ looked at his prize for a second, pondering. If he'd learned anything in all his years working in accounting and with computers, it was that you always backed up and double saved your work. Any number of things could happen to the test tube. It could get stolen, broken, lost... He set the first tube carefully on the rack and prepared a second. He considered making a third, but that was pushing preparedness into paranoia. He capped the second tube and turned to face the airlock.

"Oh no. Oh..." EJ swore, breaking into a cold sweat and nearly dropping both his tubes. There was nothing on this side of the airlock doors, just smooth green glass and rubber seals. He'd been so excited about getting in, he hadn't thought his whole plan through.

He set down the tubes and ran his gloved hands around the edge of the airlock door, then spun and completed a circuit of the interior of the cylinder. There had to be an emergency exit, some kind of escape hatch. With all these security measures, the architects of this place had to have built in a way to get out of the cylinder without help from the outside.

There was nothing. The glass was smooth and perfect, the floor and ceiling solid cement.

Inside his suit, EJ took a deep breath. This was just another mystery he had to solve, and he still had hours and hours before he might be discovered. Worst came to worst, he could try to break the glass. With the suit, he would be safe from any hazardous chemicals.

Awkwardly, EJ pulled one arm out of the sleeve of the space suit and in close to his body. It was a good thing the suit was so loose and baggy, or he wouldn't have been able to do it. Now he could reach his pants pocket and extract the cheap cell phone he'd bought earlier.

Ferret and Kangor didn't know about this part of the plan—they had been under the impression that he had hired them only to break into Alva's office—but he would rather bring them into his blackmail scheme than get found by the lab workers in the morning.

He dialed the number by touch, praying he'd got it right, then pressed the phone against his shoulder, bringing it as close to his ear as he could.

Nothing. Of course not. He was buried under a couple hundred tons of lead, steel and cement. The strongest cell signal on earth couldn't penetrate this basement.

"Okay. What else?"

EJ put the cell back in his pocket and examined the cylinder again. He had the canisters, the rack of tools, his space suit and himself. Besides the canisters, nothing strong enough to break the glass or force the door, and those were welded to their stands.

EJ looked at the test tubes again. This gas, what was it? Was it corrosive enough to destroy the airlock? Probably not. The cylinder was designed to contain the stuff.

Too bad EJ wasn't a chemist, or he could whip up some super acid out of the stuff in his pockets and use that to escape. But he was just a regular guy, and left with the one tool all guys across the ages had access to. The default guy response to danger: hit it until it went away.

EJ took a couple steps back and threw himself at the airlock. The door showed no signs of having been hit, but EJ wasn't about to give up either. He backed up and rammed his shoulder against the door again, once, twice, ten times.

"Ow," he said as he caromed off the airlock and into the rack of tools. Test tubes and other miscellaneous stuff crashed to the floor. EJ swore as he stepped into a fallen test tube with a crunch, put off balance by his exertions.

Violet gas swirled around his booted foot. He jumped away, searching for the second sample, but there was nothing but a mess of junk and shards on the floor.

"It's okay," he told himself. He still had the suit to keep him safe, and maybe he could use the broken glass to cut away the rubber seal of the airlock.

EJ coughed. There was something acrid in the suit. More like burning plastic than B.O. EJ checked his pits anyway, and found to his horror a torn seam along the triceps, likely from putting abnormal stress on the suit.

Frantic, EJ pounded on the door, shouting, begging, pleading for someone to let him out. The opaque gas around his feet thinned out, filling the cylinder with a fine lavender mist.

 **11.8.1 Top Notch Security Force**

"Why would Ferret and Kangor want to break into Alva's office?" I asked Richie as we flew home.

"Beats me," Richie said with a yawn. "But I hope Alva gives us a raise. We've got school in like three hours."

 **11.8.2 Disappointment**

The gaunt man ended his clandestine phone call and returned to the lab to inspect the progress. It had taken some finagling, but the team was just now loading the petrified body of Edwin Alva, Jr. onto a forklift bot, ready to cart him up to one of the cells upstairs. There was no telling if a conscious mind was still trapped within that stone body, or if he'd gone the way of so many guinea pigs before him. They had the space to hold onto him at least.

 **11.9 True Colors**

Ebon's world was nothing but a haze of light and pain. Unable to see or hear, every inch of him burning under the cruel bulbs. He had no way of knowing whether he had been there for only a minute or his entire existence. There was no thought, no time, only pain and the hateful knowledge that _it didn't have to be this way_.

And then, something changed. A flicker in the ever present glare. The pain dulled enough for Ebon to become aware of the passage of time.

A minute went by and then the lights went out.

Ebon rose up, trembling and weak. Fade emerged from the ceiling, shaking one hand in pain.

"Can you get us out of here, boss?" Fade asked.

Ebon pulled himself together, laughed aloud in relief and gratitude and for the foolishness of humans. It took him a moment longer than it might have ordinarily, but Ebon brought forth a portal into the subway.

"Where are the others?" Ebon asked, realizing the subway was unlit and empty save for him and his lone disciple.

"In the clink. I can't get them out by myself."

"Then allow me."

Ebon summoned up a series of portals, his range weakened from his imprisonment. He and Fade zig-zagged across the city, his health improving as they went. They stopped just outside a chain-link fence, the prison's first line of defense. It was night, thank goodness. Ebon didn't know if he could withstand sunlight right now.

"Have you spoken with them?" Ebon asked.

Fade shook his head. "No, they're being watched. I stayed in the walls."

Ebon focused his perception, brought them into the prison itself, and then to a specific cell in the women's ward. Talon lay on the bunk, not yet asleep. She sat up with a start, peering into the dark without seeing.

"I'm here to take you home, Talon," Ebon said, stretching his range to pull forth a portal that went beyond the edge of the prison walls.

But rather than fall to her knees, weeping and thanking him, Talon shrieked, a short blast of sound that disrupted his nascent portal.

"Help!" she shouted, not using her power. "Someone help!"

Ebon stared at her in shock as she screamed. They had poisoned her against him.

"Fade!" Ebon commanded, and his faithful servant moved forward to occupy the same space as the screaming girl. Talon shuddered and went quiet. With awkward, jerky movements, Fade piloted her through Ebon's reformed portal. The two separated again on the other side, Fade with a look of disgust on his face, Talon with horror.

"I'll be lenient with you, Talon," Ebon said, raising himself up tall. "In light of our recent failure and your past loyalty. But don't assume-"

The girl screamed again, dissolving his words with a wall of sound. Before Ebon could stop her, she leaped skyward, her fragile wings propelling her back over the fence and into the prison yard.

"Talon!" Ebon called and slid after her, stretching up one arm to grab her. But by now the guards had noticed the disturbance, and lights were coming on from all directions. A man with a microphone shouted at him from the guard tower.

"She blew our cover," Fade shouted. "Let's move!"

A bullet exploded in a cloud of dust on the ground near Fade's feet. Talon was already across the yard, pounding on the door for someone to let her in. Ebon watched in disbelief. How could she have turned against him so? Had their failure been so catastrophic in her eyes?

A second bullet whizzed through him, bringing Ebon's ruminations to an end. He created a portal and slipped through, Fade following after. A second portal left his lone disciple by himself in the subway. Ebon needed some privacy to recover and think.

Talon had been his first recruit, and the most loyal, he had thought. She never complained like Shiv or lamented her transformation like D-struct. She was always there, ready to do what was needed of her to the best of her limited ability.

Something had happened during that intervening time. Someone had spoken with her, manipulated her against him, and Ebon had a good idea who.

Static.

 **11.9.1 Jailbreak**

The warden watched the tape in disbelief.

"Let's hold off on informing the public."

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Uf, long chapter. I might end up cutting that scene where Virgil makes an ad for Alva-it's not really necessary, but I thought it was kind of fun. Anyway, I'm glad this one's finished, because I'm super excited for the next chapter. New character coming up!

Happy Halloween!


	12. Head Games

**12 Head Games**

Clouds rise up, blown slowly up the lakeside by a southerly breeze. The original site of the leak is quarantined, but somehow no one takes the weather into account.

At dawn, a girl goes for her morning run, unaware of anything out of the ordinary.

 **12.1 Late Bloomer**

A few weeks before Ebon's attack, Madelyn Spaulding started getting headaches. She'd never felt so miserable in her life. At first she had thought she was going crazy. She'd get these flashes of images, sounds, smells, and then her world would condense to a pinpoint of pain just behind her eyes.

After the second or third time this happened, Madelyn had told her mom and they had gone to visit the doctor the next day.

"Migraines," the doctor had proclaimed almost at once. "These flashes are very typical of a migraine aura, and you're at the age when these things start to show up. There's not much I can do, I'm afraid, but I can prescribe painkillers if they start impeding on your everyday life."

Madelyn's mom convinced her to wait and see just how bad the headaches were going to get before opting for the meds. Madelyn's grades would suffer if she went to school hazy from opiates.

But the headaches kept getting worse, more and more frequent. Madelyn's mom finally let her get the drugs when she caught her daughter throwing up from the pain.

For a while the drugs helped, kept the pain manageable. But they made her feel sleepy and weird, made food unappetizing, and still the migraines continued, three or four every day now. It was worst during the day, when she was at school. An aura would hit, and then everything just got overwhelming. Nighttime was better, when she could just lie in her bed, dozing and enjoying the quiet and the dark and the lack of pain.

She quit hanging out with her friends after school, quit the Associated Student Body, quit running in the mornings. She was losing weight, but even when her mom made her favorite foods she didn't want to eat.

And then Ebon attacked. Five whole days of no school. It was wonderful.

"Tell you what," Madelyn's mom said, sitting on the edge of her bed. "You go to school on Tuesday, and if it's too much, we'll talk about a new prescription. And if that doesn't work, how does homeschooling sound? I hate to see you suffer like this, sweetie."

Madelyn agreed, hiccuping and in tears. She _liked_ school. She liked going to class and seeing all her friends and classmates and teachers. She'd even thought about running for next year's class president, because she really thought it would be something she would be good at.

Tuesday came, and school was… tolerable. She went to all her classes and paid attention as well as she could, but that was it. Going home that day, Madelyn thought about what tomorrow would be like. It would be harder, going back without at least a day to recover in between. But she would try.

Rather than talk to her mom and dad after school, Madelyn went straight to her room, closed the blinds and lay down on her bed. Half asleep, she heard her mom talking to her dad. She were talking about her of course, wondering if the migraines were being caused by some outside force. Stress, depression, some kind of neurological problem, like epilepsy or something? The doctor didn't think so, but maybe he was wrong.

Through her haze of pain and drugs, this talk made Madelyn angry. She wasn't crazy or depressed, she was just hurting! She just wanted the headaches to stop, she didn't want her mom and dad talking about it. If only they would be quiet!

Something _shifted_ inside Madelyn's head. The haze vanished, the pain faded to almost nothing. Downstairs, the chatter went silent.

Madelyn flung herself out of bed, ran down the stairs, laughing and shouting.

"Mom, Dad!"

She skidded into the kitchen on sock feet. "Mom, I-"

Fear rose in Madelyn's chest. Something was _wrong_. Her mom stood in front of the pantry, taking a box of tea off the shelf, while her dad sat at the table with a magazine. Neither of them were moving, deathly silent except for their quiet breath and beating hearts.

Madelyn felt like she was going to be sick.

"No," Madelyn whispered, and willed them to move. To her horror, they did, just as she expected them to. Her mom took a tea bag out of the box and put it in a cup waiting on the counter. Her dad turned the page of his magazine, his eyes moving slowly left to right. Smooth, carefully controlled actions that ended abruptly.

In some bizarre way, she _felt_ them do those things. She saw in her mind's eye the words printed in the magazine, imagined that she could feel the smooth warmth of the mug in her mom's hand. Just like she could feel their beating hearts and working lungs. And somewhere, buried deep inside them, a calm feeling of peace and tranquility. All their worries were quieted, their fears stilled.

This was what had been causing the migraines. Other people's stress. She'd been getting injections of fear and worry straight into her brain for weeks now.

Madelyn knew that what she had done to her parents was bad. It was wrong and evil, but the absence of pain just felt so good.

"Just a little while, okay?" Madelyn told her parents. She would enjoy this break, and then she would give them back to themselves. Maybe this way, she would be ready to go to school tomorrow.

Madelyn got the teakettle going again and made a cup for herself, then the three of them sat at the kitchen table and enjoyed the quiet. An hour passed, or maybe two. Finally the guilt started getting to her. Madelyn pulled at that mental connection, worried for a second that she wouldn't be able to break it, but then it snapped, like a piece of gum pulled too far too fast.

Her mom and dad shuddered, gasped, looked at each other. Almost instantly, the stress came back, all their thoughts and emotion pounding on her brain like uncontrolled waves.

"Madelyn…" her mom said, her terror palpable, directed straight at Madelyn.

Madelyn panicked. She couldn't handle that fear, that horror coming from her parents. She made the connection again, made those feelings go away. Blank bliss fell across the room, reflected in her parents' faces.

In tears, Madelyn got up from the table, unable to bear what she'd done. They hated her! And they had the right to, for taking them over like she had. It had been an accident at first, but then she'd kept it going long past the point of being forgivable.

This was bad, so bad. She loved her parents, she didn't want to do this them!

Madelyn paced around the living room, trying to think what to do. If she let them go, they were going to get all angry and upset and confused again and send her plunging back into the depths of another migraine.

Maybe there was something she could do, some way to make them not worry and not hate her once she let them go. Madelyn sat on the couch and closed her eyes, focused on that connection she had made, like thin invisible wires stretching between her and her parents.

There was more than just bliss and calm on their end, but also everything they saw and felt and heard. Madelyn dug deeper and _learned_.

It was only superficial things, the stuff her mom and dad had been thinking about before she'd made them be quiet. Her dad was reading an article about some new cancer treatment drug, which he found interesting because the father of one of his coworkers had the kind of cancer they were talking about in the article. Her mom was thinking she should make something simple for dinner, because she wanted to go back to her painting afterwards, and Madelyn wasn't in a state to appreciate it if she made anything nice, so why bother?

Other tidbits drifted in—where her dad had left his car keys, when her mom's friend's birthday was, how long it had been since her parents had last kissed…

Madelyn pulled back, embarrassed to learn anything more. She didn't want to learn anymore. She wanted _them_ to learn.

"Don't hate me," she whispered, pushed that thought upon them. "Forget this." Then she snapped the connection.

A burst of painful confusion came from the kitchen and Madelyn almost took over again out of instinct, but she held herself back. The confusion faded and their internal monologues started up again, a grating mumble against her mind, nothing distinct enough to pick out.

"Is it that late already?" her mom asked.

"Guess so," her dad said, his voice cool, but hiding surprise. "Want me to go check on Madelyn?"

 **12.2 Self Restraint**

Madelyn was in the girls' bathroom, throwing up. There had been some kind of pop quiz in the classroom next to hers and the wave of stress and anxiety had been too much to handle. Her head hurt and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry until it stopped.

But it wouldn't stop unless she did something about it, and that option was looking more and more enticing. Already she was stealing an hour or two of peace from her parents every day after school, and she'd had a hard enough time convincing herself that it was okay for her to do it. Under her control they were so calm and happy, it had to be good for their blood pressure, right? And she _needed_ to do it, or she'd never be able to survive a whole day at school.

The bathroom door opened. "Madelyn? Mrs Brady sent me to see if you're okay."

Madelyn whimpered and gave in, took control of the girl who had come to check on her. The pain ebbed, just a little. Enough for Madelyn to get up off her knees, flush the toilet and leave the stall. She rinsed out her mouth, splashed some water on her face.

A tempting thought ran through her mind, not for the first time.

 _Would anyone notice?_ Just one or two little voices turned off, maybe some of those bad boys who sat in the back and disrupted class. It wasn't like they were going to learn anything anyway, and she'd even be helping Mrs Brady and the rest of the class, making it easier and less stressful to pay attention and teach.

One or two wouldn't hurt.

 **12.3 Late Again**

I yawned, stretched and emptied my batteries into one of the "zapcaps" Richie had given me. They were pretty much just rechargeable batteries, but they held a charge really well and could handle a lot for how small they were.

Downstairs, Sharon and Pops were making small talk over coffee before they had to leave for the day.

"You're gonna be late," Sharon nagged.

I glanced at the clock. She wasn't kidding. "My alarm's busted." This wasn't even a lie.

"That's what you said last week, and we bought you a new clock. Don't tell me this one's busted too."

This was also true, and I was gonna keep ruining alarm clocks until Richie built me one that was EMP-proof. My computer was long since dead too, but I hadn't told Pops yet. He might have wanted to take it someplace to get it fixed, and the fried circuitboards would be a dead giveaway to my power.

"I guess it was faulty," I said. "Maybe you can return it?"

"There's no way it was faulty. That was a thirty dollar clock!"

"Sharon," Pops said in an exasperated voice. "Be nice to your brother."

Sharon snorted and folded her arms, frowning. I stuck out my tongue at her and reached for the coffee. Pops cleared his throat significantly and I left the pot alone.

"Hurry up and I'll give you a ride," he said, and a few minutes later I was hopping out of the car and jogging up the steps just as the bell rang.

First class was English with Mrs Brady and I smacked myself on the forehead as I realized I hadn't done the homework. This would be my second strike. One more and she'd call my Pops unless I came up with a good excuse. Broken bones, burned down house, something along those lines.

I didn't even remember what the homework was, just that Frieda had mentioned it in passing yesterday or the day before. I was pretty sure it had been assigned the day after me and Richie had busted a pair of bang babies for breaking into the Alva offices. At like three AM.

It wasn't fair. Ever since I'd gotten serious as Static, my grades had been slipping, except for PE. English was the hardest hit, just because the homework—reading books and writing essays—took so much longer than busting out a few algebra problems or answering questions about the water cycle. If only I'd got time manipulation powers instead. Then I'd be able to sleep and do homework on top of everything else.

I let myself in and slunk to the back with a quick, "sorry," avoiding Mrs Brady's eyes.

The room was silent as I walked past and a shiver of self-consciousness ran down my spine. But no one was looking at me. They all stared straight ahead with blank empty looks.

I stopped walking, glanced at my classmates and turned to face the teacher. "Um," I said, and caught one girl looking right at me. Madelyn Spaulding, that girl in the ASB who was sick all the time.

"What," I said, and a heavy blanket of calm settled over me. Zen.

 _You're fine, everything's fine, go sit down_ , Madelyn seemed to be saying. Everything _was_ fine. Madelyn was in charge. She knew what to do, how to keep everything running smoothly. No matter what happened, floods or fires or liquid smoky darkness, everything was going to be fine.

I sat, taking off my backpack and laying it at my feet, then leaned back in my chair and basked in the aura of peace.

 **12.3.1 Secret Identity**

Madelyn blinked in shock. Virgil Hawkins, nerdy, obnoxious Virgil Hawkins, was Dakota's resident superhero?

She turned to look at him. Maybe it wasn't so surprising. He did look an awful lot like Static. Just give him some goggles and that silly blue and yellow coat…

A few more facts trickled into her mind before she could close up that stream of information. An overworked dad and an overbearing sister, an empty hole where a mom should have been. A friend he cared for, pitied, worried about and was jealous of.

Madelyn wondered for a minute what she ought to do with this secret. Tell the teacher? The police?

No, that wouldn't be fair to Virgil. She wouldn't want anyone giving away her secret. Besides, once she let him go, he wasn't going to remember any of this anyway.

 **12.4 Metaphors**

Richie plotted his course through the shifting tide of bodies in the hall between classes, picked up his social studies textbook from his locker, bumped fists with Virgil, who seemed super groggy and out of it, and ducked into the classroom before two cliques of freshmen girls collided in an explosion of delighted screams. Generic Boyband must have finally released Stereotypical Album.

Richie was not however the first person to arrive. Madelyn Spaulding was already there, sitting in her usual seat by the window, her head on her desk. It looked like he and Virgil weren't the only ones who could use a little extra sleep.

A group of girls came in, chatting loudly amongst themselves. There was still a couple minutes before class was supposed to start and the teacher wasn't even there yet, so Richie propped his head on his fist and turned to his power to entertain himself.

 _Initiate auditory mask 'Soothing Nature Sounds'_. He'd gone to the park a few days ago, and recorded a memory track of all the stuff he'd heard. Birds chirping, creeks burbling, car alarms singing in the distance… The noise of the classroom turned into a mushy haze as the recorded memory came to the forefront.

 _Yo, Adminsky, how's the upper track limit looking?_

Richie's power had continued to grow at a pretty stable rate ever since he'd first figured out how to use it.

 _Ve are at vun hundred tirty nine maximum, comrade Alpha._ The southern accent had gotten boring, so Richie had given the Administrator a Russian one for a change.

 _Status of current projects?_

 _Hoverboard is havink issues. More science needed. Spring trap trowy tinks are progressing according to schedule, but ve are lackink better name._

 _Grapplinator?_ Richie suggested, then nixed the idea. He'd ask Virgil later, or one of the techs in the lab.

As he did this, the classroom filled up, the teacher came in and the bell rang. Richie turned off the auditory mask, set all of his side projects to minimum importance and created a new memory recording track, just in case anything interesting came up in the lecture. His hands meanwhile prepared for the unnecessary business of taking notes. People might start to wonder how he was getting such good grades if he never took notes.

There were a lot of things Richie did to make sure no one caught on to his power. Being intentionally lousy in gym, getting questions wrong on quizzes, pretending he didn't know the answers to things when he actually did... He felt weird for doing it, but fortunately he didn't have to think about it much. There was a track for that.

The teacher looked at his watch, frowned at the class. "Jaime, take off that hat... sit down... and…" he trailed off, his words slowing as he spoke.

Quiet reigned in the classroom. Jaime sat, the teacher relaxed his posture and a mantle of stillness settled across Richie's mind.

 _Unauthorized track,_ the Guard Dog reported. _Attempting to isolate. Woof._

 _Oh,_ Richie thought. _That's strange._ Somehow, he just couldn't get worked up about it. _Source?_ His thoughts were slow, like they were traveling through honey.

 _Bark. External._

 _Weird. Scope?_

 _Alpha, emotions, natural memory, motor tracks. Yip, yap._

 _Run recorded memory track, Yesterday's Math Class, speed one-to-one, full immersion._

The classroom around him dissolved, replaced by another. On the overhead, the teacher walked them through a sample problem. Richie blinked (not really though, it was only the memory of a blink) and looked around him, his imagination supplying any details his memory hadn't captured. By embedding his conscious self, the "Alpha track," in a memory track, he had hoped to lessen the effects of the external track, clear his thoughts a little. It had worked, but there was still a soft, gummy feeling to everything. Like he was being hugged to death by a marshmallow.

 _Yo, Admin, can we support a fake Alpha track?_ His first goal was to gain full autonomy of himself again. As it was, he was paralyzed and unaware of his physical surroundings, his thoughts sticky. Not the best situation. Once he had control again, then he could worry about, well, everything. He was incapable of worrying right now.

 _Not vithout major headache. How realistic you vant it?_

 _One step above current AI, two steps below autonomous consciousness._

From the safety of his memory track, Richie created a copy of each of his sensory and bodily functions tracks, linked and subordinate to the originals, blocked from affecting other tracks. Then, linked to those, he connected a simulation of what he would be doing in this situation if he really didn't mind the external track and gave it access to his short term and declarative memory so as to better trick the invasive other. As a whole this bundle of tracks got the name Ricky, short for Rickety Piece of Junk. Finally he added a small track to monitor Ricky and its interactions with the invading track.

 _Huh,_ Ricky thought, observing the quiet social studies classroom. _This is nice._ The pressure of the invading track diminished and Richie left the Yesterday's Math Class memory, retreating to the Track Simulation Track.

The TST had evolved since its first imagining. No longer was it a dusty trainyard, but instead a three dimensional hub of adaptable threads set against the backdrop of outer space. Richie's mental picture of himself stood on a space station platform, observing the scene.

A bundle of sensory tracks stretched down to a brightly colored planet below, representing the physical world. Car after car of information zoomed along the tracks, carrying sensory input to be processed. The Ricky bundle ran parallel to that, copying the information, but going nowhere.

Other tracks sat quiet, waiting for enough room and energy to continue with their work—the side projects. Over everything rested a giant white cloth, gauzy and semi-transparent, wrapped tightest around the Ricky bundle. A cord was attached to the densest part of the cloth, reaching off into hyperspace. A few errant information cars from the Ricky track got siphoned up the cord, or rather, copies of them. Richie wasn't losing anything.

 _How are we holding?_ Richie asked his two mental helpers.

 _Ve are in headache zone, but simulation is steady._

 _Invading track has halted its progress. Bow-wow._

Richie looked up at the cord stretching out into infinite space. It had to go somewhere, and that was the only place he was going to get any kind of answer. Was he being drugged? Was it a bang baby thing? Something else entirely?

Richie looked out at the frozen image of the classroom with his real eyes. They blinked, but that was only an automatic response to moisture levels. He was locked in, his thoughts the only thing he had control over.

From what he could see, everyone in the classroom was in the same state he was, slack and empty-eyed. They probably didn't even have control over their own minds like he did. It was disgusting, this thing turning happy living normal people into vegetables.

 _Bark. Bark, bark,_ the Guard Dog said. The invading track was responding to his disgust. Looking at the TST, Richie saw the vast blanket feeling for him, reaching, searching. It would find him soon if he didn't shut down his emotions, and that wasn't something he wanted to do. Shutting down his emotions would remove the aspect of Richie that was, well, Richie.

Time to get going.

Richie suited up, climbed into his X-Wing Fighter. He really had to build himself one of these in real life, not just in his imagination.

 _Admin, do you copy?_ he said into the ship's radio.

 _Is bad idea_ , the Administrator said, acting in its capacity as the Voice of Reason. _Ve don't know vhat vill happen_.

 _You know what? I think that's a nice change,_ Richie thought, trying to keep himself upbeat and calm.

He pushed a few random buttons on the ship's console and he took off, running parallel to the shining white cord leading off into space. Sparks of information zipped along it, going in both directions. Going alongside wasn't going to get him anywhere. He nudged the ship's controls and plowed into the cord.

The ship around him dissolved, leaving Richie floating alone in his space suit. He grabbed a passing spark of information and it towed him all the way to the source of the invasive track.

 _Madelyn._

It was a very weird sensation. He could still feel his own body sitting in the desk chair, still see the scene locked onto by his unmoving eyes, but he could also feel and hear and see everything Madelyn was experiencing. And vise-versa. She was experiencing what he was experiencing, as well as what everyone else in the classroom was experiencing.

She'd even created a visual metaphor, kind of like he had with his Track Simulation Track. Madelyn's picture of herself stood in an empty white space, stretchy filaments buried into her head. These were her control lines, connected to the people in the classroom. Sparks of information flowed along them in a calm, orderly fashion. But there were wild filaments too, lashing around like crazy snakes. These would strike her sometimes, shocking her with unrestrained sparks. Her hands twitched, like she wanted to reach out and grab these flailing lines and stop them from striking her.

 _Oh, Madelyn._ Richie's disgust was replaced with pity. No wonder she'd had her head on the table earlier.

" _Richie?"_ Madelyn said out loud. He could feel her confusion at having been tricked by the Rickety Piece of Junk. " _How..?"_ she started to ask, but even before she finished the question, she had pulled the information through the filament connected to Richie's mind.

" _No way, you and Virgil both? And you think I… How could_ I _be a bang baby?_ "

 _I dunno. But I'd guess you didn't get a very heavy exposure if it's taken this long for your powers to manifest,_ Richie thought, mentally wincing at the fact that she knew about him and Virgil.

" _I couldn't help it,"_ Madelyn said, referring both to her taking control over their classmates and finding out about his and Virgil's recent extracurricular activities.

 _Yeah, I can see that._ Richie created a new track to regulate the flow of information in his connection with Madelyn. In her visual metaphor, he reached up and pinched the filament between his fingers, squeezing it shut. _We'll talk about me and Virgil later, but right now I wanna see if I can help you with these._ He nodded at the flailing filaments.

" _How?"_

 _Try to improve on your visual metaphor,_ he suggested. _I got really bad headaches at first too, until I figured out how to monitor what I was doing and not try to think about too much stuff at once._ He loosened his grip on the connection, let a little info slide through on how his power worked.

" _Like imagine a wall?"_ Madelyn asked, not really believing that this would fix her problem.

 _Yeah._ Richie didn't know if it would work either, but it was a good place to start.

Madelyn imagined a wall made of bricks, with gaps in it so the connections already in her grasp could snake through. The wall flickered in and out of existence, changing in shape and size and color as Madelyn struggled to picture what she wanted.

 _Yo, Admin,_ Richie thought, careful to hide this from Madelyn. _How long's it been?_

 _Ve can't see clock, but based on number of heartbeats at normal resting rate, is perhaps five minutes._

Richie nodded, returned his attention to Madelyn. He had about forty-five minutes to help her figure this out before anyone outside the classroom noticed what was going on. Less if someone interrupted class.

" _It's not working,"_ Madelyn said, and Richie could see that she was right. The stinging filaments sliced through her mental wall as though it wasn't there. Which made sense. All of Richie's metaphors interacted well with each other because they were all part of his mind. But Madelyn was dealing with other people's minds too, who had no concept for her mental predicament. She couldn't effect changes upon them without taking control.

 _Okay, well what about this? You're linked up to me, right? But I still have control over my thoughts and they're not hurting you. Why don't you loosen up on the connections?_

Madelyn shook her head. " _They'll know. I don't want them to hate me."_

 _Do I hate you?_

" _No, but you're still scared of me and angry._ "

Richie grimaced. She had a better handle on his emotions than he did. _Okay, yeah, but I also get what your problem is. And so will anyone else you let loose. How about Latisha? She's super nice._

She was also within Richie's visual range, sitting on the other side of the aisle where he could see her face in profile. In his mind's eye, he watched as Madelyn grabbed one of the filaments, held it between two fingers, pulled it free from her head, but still held onto it. The filament quavered, and in a very secondhand kind of way, Richie felt the other girl become aware of what was going on, simple awareness turning to horror, a visceral feeling that hit him hard, doubling the pain in his head.

Latisha didn't move from her seat, she was still just as frozen as Richie was, but her dark chocolate face lost its color, turning gray and sickly.

Madelyn gasped and wrested control over the girl's mind again. Black sparks flew down the filament, seeking out memories to destroy.

" _You see? I can't."_ Madelyn was almost in tears. Richie cringed as the girl sitting next to her reached over and patted Madelyn on the back. The fact that Madelyn was forcing the other girl to do it made the gesture perverse.

 _That's okay. This was just experiment number two. There's lots more things we can try. What if you just let go of her conscious mind, but keep ahold of her emotions?_ Richie thought, struggling to keep his own emotions in check. It was getting harder to deny the outrage he should have been feeling at seeing his classmates turned into vegetables.

" _It doesn't work like that. Normal people aren't like you, they aren't all split up into little pieces,"_ she said, and Richie caught a flash of her mental image of him, like a reflection of himself in a broken mirror, but when you looked close, each shard held a slightly different image. That was disturbing.

 _I'll take your word for it. But if you can't, maybe I can._ Maybe he could set up a track that would stop Madelyn from picking up on negative emotions. He pictured how he would conceive of such a track in the TST, as a protective shell around his emotional tracks, but quickly realized he was going to run into the same problem here that Madelyn had discovered in trying to build a wall. The tracks were just a metaphor, not real tangible things other people could experience. He'd only seen the wall because Madelyn had control of him and he'd found a backdoor into her conscious mind.

Moving on to attempt number two. Richie reached out with his broken mirror shard fingers and plucked at one of the filaments bound to Madelyn's head. His hand passed right through it. Right. Mind control wasn't his power. His power was multitasking and being good at analytic thinking.

 _Why don't we cut class, go back to my lab?_ he suggested, in part because he was pretty sure he could rig up something to impede her power, and in part because if he got her out of the school, his classmates would be safe.

But Madelyn shook her head. " _A tinfoil hat's not going to fix this. Face it Richie, there's nothing either of us can do. We'll sit through class and then I'll let them go, let you all go and make you forget."_ She shuddered as an errant filament struck her.

 _That's your plan? Why go to school at all if you're gonna brainwash the teachers instead of actually having class? I'm sorry, but even if they don't remember, I can't let you do that,_ Richie thought, channeling Virgil for a moment. _But I really, really do wanna help you._

" _This is the only way. I'm not hurting anybody and I can't not go to school."_

 _Maybe not physically hurting, but, like, spiritually or something. You're taking advantage of them in a way they wouldn't agree to if you gave them a choice. People gotta have autonomy,_ Richie thought, deciding it was best not to argue in favor of skipping class. It would only make Madelyn turn against him.

" _But what about me?"_ Madelyn said. " _Don't I deserve a little peace? I don't wanna talk to you anymore, Richie."_ Then she pushed him, trying to force him into the quiet, blank subservience she had forced upon the rest of the class.

She wasn't going to fall for the Ricky trick a second time, or listen to reason any time soon. Richie didn't want things to get out of hand, but he didn't want to get brainwashed either. Madelyn was escalating the situation.

 _Be quiet_ , Madelyn seemed to be saying, blanketing all the ticking, moving parts of Richie's mind in cloying stillness.

Richie had played a game once, on field day in elementary school, similar to tug of war. Two opponents stood facing each other on top of milk crates, holding onto the ends of a rope. The goal was to pull your opponent off their crate or make them drop their end of the rope. The trick was to let the slack run through your fingers when your opponent pulled hardest. They were expecting resistance, but got none, and it threw them off balance. That was when you pulled them off their crate. Richie had been the champ of the milk crate game in Mrs Schraeder's third grade class.

Back in the present, Richie shut down all non-essential tracks. Ricky, the side projects, the recorded memories, the Administrator, Guard Dog and TST, all of it. It felt like a loss, like he'd done something irresponsible and then blamed somebody else for it.

But Madelyn fell for it. She stumbled mentally, surprised by the sudden stillness, the retreat when she had expected a fight. Richie grabbed ahold of the connection between them, imagined himself as a spark of information and flowed along it.

Metaphors failed. There was nothing but experiences, confused thoughts and flashes of insight. All of Richard Foley was laid bare, all his his insecurities, all his secrets deeper and darker than the fact that he occasionally played dress up and got in fights with "bad guys." His father's unbridled hate, his mother's bald disinterest, those certain tendencies within himself he'd only recently come to understand, but had been taught all his life were _wrong_.

At the same time, Richie got to know in painful detail what it was like to be Madelyn Spaulding. The sincerity with which she held her convictions, the way she cared for her friends and her parents and how she monitored her behavior so closely so that no one would ever have any reason to dislike her ever. The amount of effort she put into being the good daughter, the good student, the good friend was boggling. And yet she was so innocent to so much of the real world. She went to school because that was what a fourteen-year-old girl _did_. She tried to be good because _not_ being good simply wasn't the kind of thing that would cross her mind. Good itself wasn't even something she was aware of, it was just her default setting.

Her power was a corruption of herself. It took her desire to please others and create order and turned it into something she really could do. Something that if she didn't do it, it caused her physical pain. It was costing her her innocence too, opening her up to the grays of morality, showing her that not everyone was good-by-default, that for some people, good was just keeping your head down and getting through the day without any major screwups.

 _I'm so sorry_ , they thought. Just as he was seeing how her power was tearing her world apart, she was seeing how Richie had always been trying to build his own world from scratch. She'd seen him as shattered, but he'd been like that long before the big bang.

Madelyn blinked, or maybe Richie did. Everything felt slow and smooth, like motor oil. A vast well of information pooled around them, untouched. Unrestrained minds writhed in the empty space, emitting tiny flashes of the present from a thousand different angles. It was confusing, overwhelming.

Before it had only been the minds within a few feet that could shock and sting like that, now it was the whole school. Richie reached out, snatched up the sparking threads. Each one was like making a new friend, or like seeing an old friend after a long time apart. He _knew_ each and every one of them, their likes and dislikes, their fears and pleasures. Not as intimately as he knew Madelyn, but close.

Madelyn saw them as an aggregate, separable but essentially a whole mass. Richie saw them as tracks, calm under her influence, but not yet put to use. And they could be put to use, way better than the tracks in Richie's mind, because those tracks were all Richie, and his was a limited, singular experience. These tracks were a collection of distinct experiences with different neural pathways, different ways of looking at the world and solving problems.

Joy ran through the mass. Madelyn could hold them together, keep the peace. Richie could filter the information, set tasks to best utilize their differences and talents.

Together they could solve any problem. They could optimize the world, even without the four total bang babies under their control.

 _No_.

There was some guilty part of both of them that realized what they were doing was wrong. They weren't gods playing with the fates of mortals, they were teenage kids enslaving their school.

 _How do we not?_

Maybe they could stay connected and Richie could just close off the flow of information. No headaches, no godlike knowledge. Except of each other. And even if they pretended they were dating, they couldn't be together always. Even with their range extended by being connected, distance would eventually snap it.

 _It won't work. Think._

The command sped down the thousand threads. Answers came back in spits and spurts. Not all of them were good and most of them weren't even workable, but working in concert they worked better and faster than any single solitary mind, no matter how smart or superpowered.

 _Which is the best?_

The brainstorming session ended and the school pondered the ramifications of each of the solutions.

 _It'll damage you_ , the part that was Richie said to the part that was Madelyn, even while he remembered the suffering she had endured.

 _But you'll be able to fix it_ , the part that was Madelyn said, thinking of the things he'd already been able to create with his power.

Together, they let the captured minds go. Madelyn told them to forget while Richie reached into her part of their mind, examining it. Her power was like a tumor, growing in and around the part of her that interpreted stimuli, supplying stimuli from sources she was never meant to access. Like an unpracticed surgeon, he split the tumor away from the core that was Madelyn's consciousness. The tracks didn't separate naturally like they did in his own mind, but the way they were connected made it possible.

Madelyn slumped over in her seat by the window, giving a small, animal-like groan. Richie snapped back to himself, found that he was breathing heavy and there were tears on his cheeks and blood dripping from his nose.

He sat, dazed and empty-headed as the classroom came back to life around him.

"Madelyn?" the teacher cried as Madelyn's body fell out of her seat. The girl next to her shrieked and the teacher ran to kneel by his fallen student.

An ambulance was called and a few minutes later Madelyn was loaded up and rushed to the overworked ER.

Richie excused himself to the nurse's office and watched out the window as the ambulance's siren faded into the distance.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

This was another fun one to write. I really like how in prose, these kinds of mental battles are super action-y and exciting, but then if they were portrayed realistically in film or something, it'd just be two people quietly staring off into space and then one of them falls down or dies.

Also, I don't really have a legit reason why Richie would get a nosebleed from straining his power. Maybe as a defense mechanism sub-power? What are your thoughts?

Next chapter: probably a short one-we'll see what the consequences of Madelyn's actions are.


	13. Resolve

**13 Resolve**

"Oh, God," Karen whispers into the phone. Why hadn't she seen this coming?

 **13.1 The Parents**

After school, Richie fetched his costume from the abandoned gas station, wishing he could have chosen a more somber color scheme. He strapped on Backpack, pulled on his skates and took off for Madelyn's house.

The Spaulding family lived on the north edge of town, near the lake. It was a nice house, a middle class house that could afford a view because the surrounding neighborhoods weren't that great. They were still trying to pay it off, but in a few years it would be fully theirs, thanks to the promotion Madelyn's dad had got—he was a nighttime floor manager at one of the Alva factories. Madelyn's mom was a painter who once in a while got commissions to do murals for businesses, but mostly worked out of her studio in the garage, still trying to make a name for herself.

Richie knocked on the door. The Spauldings should have been home, but no one answered.

"Backpack, scan for life." The robot emitted a mild EMP pulse, like Static did when he was looking for something. Backpack couldn't detect or distinguish things on Virgil's level yet, but it could do a little.

The robot beeped a negative and Richie took off again, headed for the hospital.

Backpack smoothed out what would have been a rough landing in the hospital parking lot and Richie rolled into the main waiting room, wheels slipping on the linoleum.

"Um, hey," he said to the nurse's aide on duty. Backpack masked his voice, changing the pitch and timbre with speakers built into the helmet. "Can you tell me where Madelyn Spaulding is?"

The nurse's aide looked at him in surprise and Richie wondered for a second if coming in costume had been the best idea. She glanced at her computer screen, clicked around a little with the mouse.

"I'm sorry, her parents aren't allowing visitors."

Of course not. Richie knew them well enough he should have figured that was what they'd do.

"Oh," he said. "Thanks." He thought about flying around and letting himself in through a window, then plugging Backpack into the hospital computer network and finding her that way, but that wasn't the kind of thing a good guy would do. He'd toed the edge of morally gray enough today.

He wheeled back out into the parking lot before the aide could pester him about the costume. The Spauldings would have to go home at some point, so he would wait for them there.

He landed on the street, retracted the wheels on the skates and sat himself down on their front lawn. The grass was damp, but his army pants were water resistant. He rested his helmeted head on his fist and got started rebuilding his mental landscape, deleting all the stuff he'd accidentally learned about his classmates and teachers.

A kid walking the family dog tried to talk to him, but Richie flashed the words Do Not Disturb on his helmet display. Virgil tried to call him on his shockvox a while later, which he ignored. He'd talk with Virgil after he'd decided how much to tell him about what had happened.

Around dusk the Spauldings returned from the hospital in their black Subaru that kept leaking oil no matter how often they took it to the mechanic.

Richie got to his feet so they would be sure to see him, wiping the helmet display blank.

"Mr and Mrs Spaulding? Hi," he said, holding out a hand to shake as Mr Spaulding, Mike, got out of the car. Karen Spaulding-Andrews followed from the passenger side. "I'm Gear, I go to school with your daughter."

Mike shook his hand, mystified. Karen looked at him with suspicion and hesitated to recapitulate when he offered to shake her hand too.

"Can we talk inside?"

Karen frowned. "What is this about?"

From his borrowed memories, Richie knew Karen could be very perceptive. She wouldn't bridge any obvious lies. "Me and Madelyn are friends, and we… talked about some stuff she was going through. I think she'd want me to tell you guys."

Mike and Karen exchanged a look.

"Yeah, you can come inside," Mike said.

Mike led the way up the steps, unlocked the door to let them all in. The Spaulding house wasn't a shoes-off house, but Richie kicked off his skates anyway, not wanting to scratch up the hardwood. He unhooked Backpack from his shoulders and pulled off the helmet. Mike and Karen watched him as he set the helmet on top of the robot and straightened his glasses, fixed his earring.

The change in their demeanor was visible. No one liked talking to a helmet. He probably should have been worried about his identity, but he knew Mike and Karen wouldn't blackmail him, and he felt he owed them a real face-to-face conversation.

"I was going to make a cup of tea, do you want one?" Karen asked.

"Yeah, sure," Richie said, and a few minutes later he was sitting in an armchair in the living room, facing Mike and Karen on the sofa, a cup of mint tea in his hands.

He looked at the teacup, trying to think how to best explain things. "You guys know who I am, right?"

"You're Static's sidekick," Mike said.

Richie pushed his glasses up his nose. "Yeah. Partners, but yeah. We got caught in the gas leak at the big bang. That's how we got our powers. A little bit ago I looked up the weather reports for that day and it looks like the wind was coming out of the south." He waved in that direction, towards the industrial piers south of the Spaulding house. Mike looked confused, but Karen's eyes were going wide, like she'd guessed what his point was going to be.

"And I know Madelyn likes to go for runs early in the morning. If she went for a run extra early that day, she might have got exposed. I think Madelyn is a bang baby, a mind-reader," he said, talking fast so they couldn't interrupt "She didn't get much of an exposure, which I think is why it took so long for the change to happen."

On the sofa, Mike was shaking his head while Karen squeezed his hand.

"But she couldn't control it very well," Richie said. "For whatever reason, there's some bang babies who can't. That's how she found out about me." He tapped his head. "She didn't mean to, but she figured out my secret identity.

"She let me know and, we, like, we talked about stuff and got to be friends," he said. He'd decided not to tell Mike and Karen about the whole mind-meld thing, which could definitely be interpreted in a sexual way, even though it hadn't been. He was ninety percent sure that Karen was wondering right now if they were dating and he didn't want to further that suspicion.

"Maybe it's not really any consolation, but I think she would've made a really good superhero if she'd gotten a controllable power. Maybe that's not what you wanna hear, 'cause you probably seen me and Static do some pretty stupid stuff on TV, but she's like a good person, you know?"

Mike and Karen smiled wanly, like they were glad he was saying it, but not knowing if the words were empty or sincere.

"I think that's why it hit her so hard, being forced to feel all those bad things other people were feeling. So then today, she just kinda lost it. I think she used her power on herself to shut down most of her brain." He was twisting the truth for the sake of simplicity and because he'd decided during his wait that he would not tell them about how she had periodically brainwashed them in order to get some relief from the overstimulation, or how the two of them had seriously considered trying to take over the world.

The Spauldings' faces went hard. The doctors would have told them Madelyn was practically brain-dead already, Richie knew, but he was certain their reasons why must have been vague. Karen looked like she might start crying, so Richie moved on to the good news.

"But I think I might be able to bring her back. She must have some abnormal brain waves, 'cause of the power, and I bet I can rig up something to pick them up-"

Karen choked out a sob. "Oh, Gear…"

Richie froze for a second, the thought crossing his mind that the Spauldings had already decided to pull the plug on their daughter. But Karen was crying with relief. She got up, pulled Richie into a hug, just like the ones he remembered Madelyn getting. It was awkward and sad and weird. Richie patted her on the back a couple times and she let go.

He told them about the couple of ideas he had going, how long it might take, the kinds of stuff he'd need to study and learn before he could make it work. Mike and Karen asked him a few questions about his power and Madelyn's, and he ended up explaining more to them than he had even to Virgil—the tracks, the memories, the side projects...

"Why don't you stay for dinner?" Karen eventually asked. "We were just going to order take-out."

Richie glanced at his watch—a nice new digital one. Too late to catch dinner at Virgil's probably. "Thanks, but I gotta get going home. My folks are probably wondering where I am." This was a lie, but he didn't want to overstay his welcome.

"Oh, of course," Karen said, like she'd forgotten that his being Madelyn's classmate meant that he was only fifteen and lived with his parents too. They both hugged and thanked him again and watched as he put on the mechanical aspects of his costume before heading out.

 **13.1.1 Stalker**

Fade stepped out of his hiding place in the wall and started walking back towards the subway. He still didn't have a name, but he had a face and a heck of a lot of knowledge about their enemy's sidekick. Sorry. Partner.

 **13.2 Maudlin Thoughts**

My shockvox buzzed. It was pretty late and I was already in bed, but Richie had been avoiding me all day, so it wasn't like I was going to ignore the call. I put on my jacket and stepped outside, levitating up to the roof for some privacy.

"Yo, what's up? You been sick or something?" I asked.

"Yeah, you could say that. I'm at the gas station. You wanna come over?" He sounded like someone had died.

"Sure thing. Be there in five minutes."

I went back inside for shoes and a headlight and flew over, staying well above street level and away from windows. Richie was sitting on the couch with a blanket, reading a fatty textbook with tiny print.

"What's up?" I said, pulling over the space heater and zapping it to life. The goggles came off and I plopped down on the couch.

"Have I changed?" Richie asked, talking to the book more than to me.

He hadn't started with ' _I've been thinking'_ , but I had the feeling this was going to be one of those kinds of conversations. I rubbed the back of my neck. "Well, yeah. You're way smarter, and better at fixing stuff, but it's not like you just, poof, turned into somebody else. That's what you're talking about, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Good," I said in a final kind of tone and mimed checking off a box in a to do list. "Existential crisis resolved. What's next?"

Richie snorted, looking me in the eye now. "I'm serious, V. Do you remember when I still didn't have my power figured out, and I was getting all those headaches and being a jerk?"

"No, I forgot all about that with my tiny insect brain. What about it?"

"Just that. It was making me all grumpy and jerkish. And I totally wouldn't have been if I didn't have the power. And it makes me think, how can I tell if me with powers is acting different from how me without powers would be acting if he existed?"

I sniffed the air. "Have you been smoking?"

Richie just frowned at me.

"Okay, yeah. What do you want me to say, that no, you're totally the same in every way? 'Cause that's not true, and really, it'd be scary if it was. If you didn't change at all? That'd be weird. Stuff happens to you, and you change. Not you specifically," I added. "Like the general you."

"Yeah, I know," Richie said, rubbing at his eye. "It's just I was talking with Madelyn's folks earlier-"

"What?" I interrupted. Why would he talk with them? He didn't know Madelyn any better than I did, and I kinda doubted they'd want to talk to some random kid when their daughter was in a coma all of a sudden. I didn't know for sure what had happened, but that was what the rumor mill (AKA Frieda Goren) was saying.

"Yeah, I got to know her pretty good recently. So I went to talk with her folks, and they like, forgot I was Madelyn's same age I think. They were surprised I live with my parents, like they assumed I lived in my own apartment or something. And I kinda realized I've been having trouble associating with people my own age."

I rolled my eyes. "Rich, first of all, you've never been great at associating with people your own age. And second, you and Madelyn? Why didn't you tell me you were seeing her? Congrat-" I cut myself short as Richie turned red, realizing that with Madelyn in a coma, this probably wasn't the best time to be congratulating him for possibly having gone on a date. "I mean... sorry. When, I mean, do you know how she's…?" I mumbled, embarrassed to ask all the questions I wanted to ask.

"She's in a coma. Feeding tube, but she's breathing on her own. They don't know when or if she'll come out of it, or what caused it. I think I can fix her though, if I learn enough." He shifted the book in his lap. "And no, we weren't dating."

I really, really wanted to ask more—how Richie had gotten to be friends with her mainly—but he was so sad and torn up, I didn't know how to do it in a tactful way.

"How are her folks doing?" I asked eventually.

"Okay, I guess. They care about her a lot."

I nodded, unable to imagine what Pops would do if me or Sharon wound up in a coma.

We sat in silence for a minute, listening to the space heater tick as it heated up. It was technically spring already, but it was still pretty cold out at night.

"Do you think our powers are indicative of who we are as people?" Richie asked after a while, just as I was getting ready to ask what he planned on doing over the weekend. I guess I'd checked off that "resolve existential crisis" box way too soon.

"Maybe? Hotstreak's is for sure, but yours and mine?" I shrugged. What kind of personality trait did electricity and magnets represent? And while Richie had been smart before, it wasn't like his defining feature and he hadn't been much into inventing.

Richie looked at me in surprise. "Oh yeah! I forgot about him. You know, we should probably get in touch with him."

It was my turn to be surprised. "Why?"

Richie shrugged. "'Cause he's a bang baby? There's not that many of us, so we should stick together."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Most of 'us' are sticking together in prison, and I'm not sure they'd appreciate a visit from Gear and Static."

"No, I guess not."

What all bang babies did we know not in jail? Me, Richie, Francis. Adam. I wondered how many bang babies like Adam were out there, minding their own business, hiding their powers.

"You thinking you can figure out how the powers work if you talk with enough bang babies?" I asked.

"Yeah, maybe." Richie rubbed his eyes again. "It feels like there's so much I gotta do, you know? I gotta fix Madelyn, I gotta solve the powers problem, I gotta keep improving my Gear stuff so I can hold my own in a fight… and then there's school and homework and, you know, sleeping and eating occasionally."

"Jeez," I said, not used to seeing Richie like this. The thing with Madelyn really must have hit him hard. How had I missed them getting close? "You do realize you don't have to do any of this stuff by yourself, right? Alva's giving us a freaking budget to spend on equipment and pay five guys-"

"Three guys and two girls," Richie corrected.

"Gender neutral guys," I double-corrected, "to build stuff and help out. And if you think it'd help to touch base with Francis or anybody else, I can totally do it." Even if Francis beat me up or tried to set me on fire every time we ran into each other.

Richie looked at me, almost smiling. He didn't look happy exactly, but he wasn't so moody anymore. "Yeah, that'd be good. Thanks, bro."


	14. Reaching Out

**14 Reaching Out**

EJ is both freer and more trapped than he has ever been. His useless, frozen body is locked behind steel doors, but his mind and spirit wander the earth, taking in sights he'd never dreamed of seeing.

 **14.1 In the Walls**

Fade returned the high school yearbook to its shelf in the darkened journalism classroom. Among the sophomores, one kid matched the description Ebon had given him of a kid he'd seen following Static around back in the early days. The same kid Fade had spied on talking with the parents of the coma girl.

Gear, AKA Richard Foley, would be arriving soon for another day of school.

Fade slipped back into the wall and waited. Waiting came easy for Fade. It was the kind of work he was good at—standing back, observing, being entertained by the things other people did.

The high school was a big old brick building, three floors tall and U-shaped. Classrooms filled the upper two floors, while the cafeteria, offices, library and other miscellaneous spaces were located down on ground level. Fade stationed himself in the classroom on the far end of one of the prongs of the U, on the third floor.

After a while the school came to life. Lights came on, teachers and staff showed up, started up the internal processes the school needed to run. The students arrived, chatting, fighting, and making noise until the teacher brought them to order, bored and resentful. Fade scanned the classroom for a certain kid, blonde and green-eyed with an earring in one ear.

He wasn't there, but there were plenty more classrooms to check.

Fade found him eventually in a social studies classroom, sitting near the door with his head propped up on his fist. Occasionally he would jot down a few keywords or draw a little diagram representing what the teacher was talking about—election processes—but he never raised a hand to ask questions or make insightful observations like Fade had expected the self-proclaimed super genius to do.

The bell rang and the kid pulled himself out of his stupor, a little light coming on in his eyes as he packed up his bag and moved on to his next class. There was something odd to how he moved through the hall, dodging and side-stepping the other students, moving a little too quickly to be normal.

And then in the next class, back to the stupor. At one point, the teacher called on him to summarize the latest chapter from the book the class was reading. He did, turning red and adjusting his glasses more than was necessary.

At lunch though, he lit up again, slipping through the crowd to his locker and then going to the lunch room to meet with his friends—a pair of long-haired girls, one Asian, one white, and a chubby kid of unknown heritage. A minute or two later a black kid with short dreads joined them, turning the group into an almost perfect picture of diversity. All they needed was a kid in a wheelchair.

Fade made a note of the black kid's name, but it was clear he went by a nickname with his friends. V. He looked and sounded an awful lot like Static in build and voice, but that could just be coincidence.

The bell rang again, and Gear and V split away from the rest of the group.

"What're you thinking this afternoon?" Gear asked.

"Go to the center I guess," V said. "I haven't been in a while. You wanna come?"

"Maybe for a little bit. You're still gonna go see Ginger, right?"

V nodded. "Yeah, after I check in with Pops. Thanks for getting the address and lending me your stuff. I'll give it back tonight. Dinner at my place?"

"Depends. Is Sharon cooking?"

V laughed and got to ragging on the last meal Sharon had made. Gear chuckled along and the two of them sat together in their next class, working on math problems. Though for Gear, it seemed more like an exercise in handwriting than anything else. V occasionally stole a glance at his neighbor's work, and while Gear caught him at this, he didn't say anything about it. He did turn in the work as soon as he was finished, leaving V to figure the rest out on his own.

While V struggled through his algebra, Gear got a book out of his backpack and started reading, turning through the pages of the dense medical textbook way too fast to be normal. Occasionally he would look up and stare off into space, pondering something, then return to the book.

From math they moved on to science, which turned out to be more social time than anything else, as Gear's lab team finished surprisingly quickly, but waited till the last minute to turn in the work so they could shoot the breeze.

Then finally gym class, where Gear reverted to his quiet, embarrassed self, getting in and out of the locker room as quickly as possible and standing on the sidelines as much as he could without the coach yelling at him. This had always been Fade's strategy in gym, but there wasn't so much reluctance in Gear's eye as longing. He looked like he wanted to run around after the ball as much as the athletic kids, but something was holding him back, beyond his being skinny and short.

After school, he confirmed his plans with V and caught the bus headed west. Riding in cars was something of a challenge for Fade, and he nearly missed it when Gear got off at a run-down apartment building half hidden behind some trees.

Fade drifted after him, swimming through the sidewalk as Gear walked past the apartment buildings, ducked through an abandoned lot and snuck into a condemned gas station. His secret lair?

Fade was both impressed and disappointed with Gear's lair. Impressed that the kid had managed to build a jetpack out of random junk in a condemned gas station, and disappointed because it was every bit as run down and miserable as the Metabreed's hideout in the subway. He'd expected something more from the so-called good guys. Fade could have sworn he'd heard rumors of Alva sponsoring the heroes, but nothing here pointed directly to that.

Gear unearthed some equipment and books from a hidden compartment under the floor and went back to reading, this time some kind of engineering text. He read for a long time.

Eventually he checked his watch and put the book away, not bothering with a bookmark. He dug some stuff out of the secret compartment—clothes and a ski mask and some bulkier pieces of equipment—and suited up as his hero self. He pulled on the mask, then marched out the back of the gas station, into the abandoned lot and took off into the sky.

Fade watched him go, then returned to the gas station. He poked around a little, trying to gain more insight into who Gear was and how he did things, but didn't discover much beyond the kid's taste in literature. Tamora Pierce, Arthur C Clarke and textbooks.

It was around midnight when the kid came back to return his costume to its hiding place. He did a quick look around to make sure everything was safely hidden, flipped up the hood of his threadbare sweatshirt and left again through the front of the gas station, keeping his head low as he walked down the potholed streets.

He let himself in to a grimey bungalow, made himself a peanut butter sandwich for school the next day and went to bed.

Fade sat on the kid's kitchen table, thinking about what he'd learned. The parents weren't involved much, but that didn't matter. Gear had other people close to him, namely his friend V. Fade had his suspicions about that kid, but he wasn't going to assume anything until he'd followed him around for a while too.

Either way, he would consider the day a success.

 **14.2 Search for Francis**

I stood outside Francis Stone's massive, impressive house, feeling like a Jehovah's Witness. I was all dressed up in my special outfit, knocking on doors and asking intrusive questions. It was weird. Doubly weird, because I was wearing Richie's helmet to mask my voice. It was heavy and warm, and the green tint was kinda nauseating.

Mrs Stone looked down her nose at me, like I was some rare and poisonous creature. Intrigued, but wary.

"You want to see Francis," she repeated. She was tall and imposing, kinda scary. I guess I knew which parent Francis took after.

"Yeah. This is the right house, right?" I asked, even though I knew it was. Richie had done a little "morally gray" investigating into the school's records earlier.

"He doesn't live here anymore. You…" a look crossed her face, like she wanted to laugh at me. "You're not asking him to _join_ your venture, are you?"

"No, I just thought we could talk. Where does he live then?" Maybe he lived with his dad or something.

Mrs Stone regarded me with a calculating look, a little smirk developing around the corner of her mouth. "B Dock, slip forty-seven. It's the Menorquin."

"Oh. A boat?" I asked, cluing in on the word _dock_.

Mrs Stone looked at me like I was an idiot, closed the door on me. I wondered for a second if Richie would have gotten a better reaction. Probably.

Well, at least she'd told me where Francis was. I hopped back on my plate and cruised down the street, passing by that house where I'd rescued the dog. The only part of that encounter which hadn't been a complete failure. I hadn't faced off against Hotstreak since then either, thank goodness.

I zoomed down to the lake, found the marina and jumped over the B Dock gate. To my surprise, it was way easier to float over the dock than over most city streets—there had to be a lot of metal inside the thing. I decided to walk anyway, to stretch my legs.

Each of the tie-up spots was numbered with a plastic plate embedded into the wooden edge of the dock. Some of the boats were nicer than others, and a few had fat yellow extension cords plugged into them, along with other signs of habitation—clothes strung outside to dry, windowboxes with flowers sitting on the floor... Or was it the roof? What did you call the part of a boat where you walked around on outside?

"You!" someone shouted at me. I looked up from the flowers and had to do a double-take. Francis had dyed his hair again, dark brown so it looked almost black in my tinted vision.

"Yo, Hotstreak," I said, bringing my plate around to float in front of me, just in case I needed to make a shield or get away. "Can we-"

"You can't beat me, Static," he shouted over me, ripping his t-shirt off as he did. It looked like he'd been spending all that time skipping school at the gym. I'd been training, but Francis was built.

"I don't wanna-"

"I ain't going back to jail!" he shouted and aimed a punch in my direction. "I'm done with that."

I ducked, brought my plate up to absorb the blast. "You're crazy!" I shouted, and launched the plate at him. He was only a few feet away now, so I didn't have much time to pile on the speed. Francis caught the plate on his shoulder and started pushing. I pushed back, trying to spin him around, throw him into the lake, but my leverage was weird as the boats and the dock bobbed around when I worked my power on them.

"Don't make me shock you!" I shouted. I really didn't want to. Right now, this was self defense. If I straight up attacked him, there was no way he'd listen to me later.

Francis swore at me and the plate started to glow dull red. He couldn't melt through steel, could he?

The air around us was getting hot. I looked around for more tools while still holding Francis back with the plate. A metal rowboat floated next to one of the bigger boats, but it was tied to the dock. If only I had a knife. There was no way I'd be able to untie it without losing focus on the plate.

What else? My electro-sense only penetrated a little ways into the water, so no sunken wrecks for me. Beach towels? He'd burn them up. I tried moving the dock itself, but it was way too heavy and stable. I had nothing to push it against.

Sweat formed on my forehead and I raised my arm to wipe it away, but Richie's helmet was in the way. The helmet. That had metal in it.

I yanked a beach towel from a clothesline on the nearest boat, balled it up and stuck it to Francis's face with a burst of static cling. While he burned it off, I popped off the helmet and pulled on my hood and goggles, then launched the helmet.

The helmet didn't hit like I wanted and just bounced off his head with a crack, rather than coming down over his eyes.

Francis roared, like literally roared. Smoke and heat waves blurred my vision and my steel plate was glowing white hot now, deformed so it wrapped around Francis's shoulder like plastic wrap. He stumbled and for a second I thought I had him, but then he grabbed the plate with two hands and tore it apart like taffy.

The ruined plate fell to the ground and Francis took a step towards me, his head and hands wreathed in flames. He bared his teeth at me in an evil smile and drew back one fist.

Then half the lake dropped on him from the sky.

"What?" I shouted into the cloud of steam. I reached out with my electro-sense. Francis hadn't moved and he felt calmer now. Less jacked up, more human. There was someone else beside him though, another bang baby for sure. There was no way a regular person could give off that much electricity.

I waved my hand in front of my face, trying to fan away the steam. "Francis, listen!"

"Get outta here, Static," Francis shouted back.

"I just wanna talk!"

Silence in the fog. I felt Francis shift a little on his feet, then a shiver ran through the air and the steam moved away, creating a dome of clear air between me and the two bang babies. Francis stood, half-naked in singed cargo pants and no shirt, looking damp and kind of sleepy, next to a girl made entirely out of water.

"Why do ju want to talk?" the water girl asked in some kind of Spanish accent. "We done nothing wrong."

"I…" I said, thrown off by the appearance of the water girl. I'd seen some people who'd got pretty screwed up from the big bang, but this was crazy. And why would she be hanging out with Francis? They were like complete opposites.

"How'd you find us?" Francis asked. The sleepy look on his face was gone now and he took a step forward. The water girl put a hand on his arm, holding him back.

"I asked your mom, she said you'd be here."

Francis swore, saying some pretty nasty things about his own mom.

"Paco, _calla ya_ ," the water girl said and Francis shut his mouth. The water girl turned to look at me. "What do ju want, Static?"

"I just wanna talk."

"We are talking. Tell me what you want to say."

I opened my mouth a couple times, trying to remember what I had been planning on saying. Now I was all thrown for a loop, what with the fighting and the appearance of the girl made of water…

"Me and Gear are trying to figure out where powers come from," I said. Just in time, I remembered the helmet, fished it out of the lake. Hopefully the wiring wasn't ruined.

Francis and the water girl stared at me while I did this. Francis's eyebrows knit together and he glanced at the water girl.

"You too?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, trying to hide my amazement that Francis Stone, notorious underachiever, was trying to figure out the same problem Richie, super genius, was struggling with.

"I guess we can talk." Francis picked up his damp t-shirt and led the way down the dock.

Francis's boat wasn't the biggest one in the marina, but it was close—not quite as long as a school bus, but wider in the middle and tall enough for two stories. The front end rose higher out of the water than the back and it put me in mind of a rhinoceros. Francis opened up the back door and we went down a couple steps to the downstairs part of the boat, where there was a mini kitchen-slash-dining room area.

"Who's Gear?" Francis asked. He opened up the mini fridge, pulled out a beer, cracked the tab and started drinking, leaning against the stairs. The water girl drifted in, sat on the bench built into the wall.

"My partner," I said, not sure if he was joking. How could he not know who Gear was? "The guy with the helmet and the rocket skates?"

"'Kay," Francis said with a shrug. "You find anything yet?"

I shook my head. "No, not really. We're trying to find out if there's any correlation between how much gas you might have breathed and what kinds of powers or mutations you got, see if there's any environmental or psychological factors that…" I trailed off, realizing I was using the kinds of words me and Richie used, not the kinds of words Francis was going to know.

Francis took a drink of his beer. I wondered for a second where he'd got it from. He couldn't have been more than eighteen.

"Are you working with Lobner?" the water girl asked. "She knows lots of people."

"Who?"

"The shrink," Francis said.

I shook my head again.

Francis rolled his eyes. "What'd you come to me for if you're just looking for bang babies? I don't know anyone 'cept Maria. And you, I guess. If whoopin' your ass counts as knowing you." He shrugged. "You ain't found anything else?"

I blinked. That was the most words I'd ever heard Francis string together. "Not really. Right now we're working under the theory that it's the powers that trigger the mutations, not the other way-"

"I mean," Francis interrupted me, "you ain't found any secret hidden bunkers full of mutation gas or fake police locking bang babies up?"

"No…" I said, confused. Had Francis found those things, or was he just being dramatic?

"So," Francis said, sounding exasperated, "what you meant was you're looking for _how_ powers work, not _where_ the _gas_ came from."

"Yeah, I guess so." I guess I hadn't given it much thought. The gas had come from the warehouse, which was some kind of chemical storage facility, and then in the explosion, some weird chemicals had gotten mixed and… poof. Big bang. "Is that what you've been doing?"

"Dead ends," Francis said, swearing.

" _Paco_ ," said the water girl—Maria presumably. She turned to me. "Somebody had to make the gas. And if they made it, they can unmake it. You're really not looking for them? The bad guys are gone, what are you doing?"

"We-" I started to say.

Francis snorted. "Look at him, Maria. Little hero kid. You think it's any coincidence the one guy who doesn't get a crapsack mutation is the guy who goes heroing?" He took another drink from his beer, set the can in the sink next to a weird, smoke-stained vase. He took a step towards me.

"You think this is a game, don't you? Your own real live video game where you get to fly around, shooting lightning."

I took a step back. "Hey, man. Back off. I took out Ebon."

Francis spun a finger in the air. "Whoo! Level completed!" He dropped the finger, stared me in the goggles with his freaky yellow eyes. "You're a spoiled little kid."

" _Paco."_ Maria grabbed his arm and I realized just how warm the air inside the boat was getting.

"Hey," I said. "I've been helping out. What have you been doing?"

"I been taking care of things," Francis said, leaning in close to my face. "I been paying bills and seeing shrinks and searching every day for the real bad guys. You come in here acting all helpful, but you're wasting my time."

"Ju should go," Maria said. The water in her hand was starting to bubble where she was touching Francis's arm.

Sweating, I held my ground. "You're right." Francis's words had hurt, but they hurt because they were true, at least in part. Ebon had needed to be taken out, but he was only the result of a deeper problem set in motion by whoever had made the gas. "I got caught up in the details. I saw Ebon as the bad guy and I went after him, 'cause I can be stubborn like that. But Gear, he's a super genius. He can find those guys if anyone can. Maybe he could find a way to undo it too." I felt bad, committing Richie to more responsibilities like that, but Francis was right. Lots of people had gotten crapsack powers and disabling mutations. Now that the city was safe, we had to do something for them. I would help however I could.

Francis and Maria looked at each other.

"Tell him to talk with the doc," Francis said, folding his arms across his chest. "She knows what's up."

I relaxed, realizing I had been on the edge of fight or flight. My knees were shaky. "I will. And if you guys could stop by the Alva robotics lab, we do still wanna know _how_ powers work, and I bet if we figure that out, finding a way to get rid of them will be easier."

Francis looked at me like I was an idiot, but Maria was more reasonable. "If you think it will help, I will go."

"I think it will. Seriously."

Francis went back to his post by the stairs and got his beer out of the sink. The two of them sat there, watching me for an awkward moment.

"So, I guess I'll talk with this Dr. Lobner then. Unless there's anything else you guys…"

"Nope."

"Right. Well, Maria, it was nice meeting you. Francis, see you later." I checked for my plate, remembered it was destroyed, then turned and went up the stairs.

"Later, V-man," Francis called after me.

It wasn't until I'd gotten halfway back to the shore that I remembered Francis wasn't supposed to know my name.

 **14.3 Doctor Patient Confidentiality**

I checked in with Richie after school the next day to make sure I had our plans straight. "You: labs, me: doc?" I asked as we walked towards the busses.

For the second or third time that day, a weird flicker caught my eye, like a heat wave despite the cold. I blinked and it vanished, and I put it down to being tired. I hadn't slept well last night, up late worrying.

"Yep. Nothing from Francis yet?" he asked. I had told him about Francis figuring out my secret identity, on top of his trying to burn me alive and then berating me for not addressing what he saw as the more pressing problem. That was the source of my worry.

"No. Are you sure we shouldn't _do_ something about him?"

Richie stopped walking, looked at me. " _Do_ something? You mean beat him up or get him arrested or something? How would that help anything?"

"I dunno," I said to the ground. Now Richie sounded like he thought I was an idiot too, which didn't hurt the same way it had coming from Francis, but between both of them and my grades, I couldn't help but wonder if they were right.

"I honestly don't think Francis is going to out you. He's a bully. I think he let you know that he knows as a way to prove that he has power over you. If he was actually planning anything, he would have tried to extort you somehow."

"Oh," I said, put in mind of Wade.

Richie continued speaking, staring off into space now rather than looking at me. "Really, it's a good thing we know that he knows, 'cause now we can keep tabs on him and this girl Maria. If we _didn't_ know that he knew… well I guess it wouldn't make a difference, because it's still just Francis." Then he blinked, shook his head and punched me in the arm. "Let's get going."

Richie got on the bus and I kept on walking for a few blocks until I found a sufficiently hidden alleyway to change in. I changed, checked the address I'd written down earlier and took off. I had to appropriate a manhole lid, since Alva hadn't yet replaced the plate Francis had destroyed.

The psychiatrist's office was a couple miles away, near the hospital in a newer office building. I left the lid outside, checked the directory in the atrium and jogged up the stairs to suite 201.

"Hi, I'm here to see Dr. Lobner?" I said to the nonplussed receptionist.

"Static, right," the woman said. "She'll be ready for you soon. Why don't you take a seat."

I sat and picked up a magazine, trying to imagine Francis Stone sitting here, getting ready to talk about his feelings. I just couldn't picture it.

After a couple minutes the door to the doctor's room opened and a white guy with curly hair and freckles walked out, a long coat wrapped over his shoulders. An older woman with short silver hair followed behind him.

"I'll work on it," the guy was saying. "I just-" he cut himself off, staring at me. "Static? No way." He turned to the doctor. "Is he really…?"

"Yep," I said, getting to my feet. Maybe someday I would be annoyed by having fans, but right now it made me feel pretty cool. "Dakota's resident superhero. Well, one of them." I held out my hand, then faltered at seeing empty sleeves. Did this guy not have any arms?

"William," the guy said. Then a purple tentacle snaked out from a gap between the buttons and wrapped itself around my fingers.

My face got hot and I felt a little sick to my stomach as the bang baby shook my hand, slime soaking into my glove. I prayed he wouldn't notice as I gulped and tried not to be sick. What else was he hiding under that coat? Some perverse part of me really wanted to know, but mainly I was just grossed out by what I had seen. I'd _fought_ guys like him before, but shaking "hands" with one was totally different.

The guy let go, pulled the tentacle back under the coat. "Nice meeting you. I gotta go."

I watched as he pulled the coat around himself more and hurried out of the office.

"Static?" the doctor asked.

I coughed, pulled my gaze away from the other bang baby. "Dr. Lobner." I shook hands again, this time without the feelings of disgust. "Thanks for meeting with me."

"Of course," she said. "You don't mind if I have lunch while we talk, do you?"

I shook my head and she led me back to a break room with a fridge and a microwave and a folding table.

"Coffee?" the doctor asked as she poured herself a cup from the pot.

"Yeah, sure."

She poured me a mug and got herself a salad out of the fridge before sitting to join me at the table.

"Linda said you're looking for a way to reverse the effects of the big bang. You and your partner." She dug her fork into the salad with a crunch.

"Yeah. He's got the technical side, and I'm trying to find people who might know stuff about it already. I talked with Hotstreak—Francis Stone—and he told me you might, you know, know some stuff."

"You talked with Francis," she repeated.

"Yeah." I almost told her about how he'd tried to burn me alive, but I didn't out of embarrassment.

"That was brave of you. What kind of stuff do you want to ask me?"

I shrugged, took an unconscious sip of my coffee. "Like, if you have any theories on how powers work, or why some people got mutated, or if you could put me and Gear in touch with other bang babies. He thinks that finding a cure will be way easier if we figure out how powers work first. Like, figure out the underlying rules."

Dr Lobner nodded, held up a finger as she swallowed her food. "Your partner, Gear. What is his power, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Being a genius."

"Huh. Lucky guy. I'm glad you boys are working on this, but I'm going to be straight with you. I can't give you any information about my patients. I can suggest that they contact you individually, but whether or not they decide to take you up on it is up to them."

I nodded. "Okay. You can put me in touch with them?"

"Yes. Just give me an email address, or what have you."

"Right." Richie and me didn't really have a way for people to contact us except through the shockvoxes, but maybe I could set up an email account through Alva. "Do you have any theories about the powers though?"

Dr. Lobner took a drink of her coffee and sat back in her chair. "No. I have some observations, but no theories. Each power seems to have its own set of rules, and each individual I have met has been able to intuit those rules on their own sooner or later.

"As for mutations… sometimes they go hand-in-hand with the powers or are a manifestation of the powers themselves. Like having wings in order to fly. But most of the time you get mutations with no or negligible powers."

"Huh." This wasn't too different from what I'd observed myself, only phrased better.

"There isn't much else I can tell you," the doctor said. "But I do have a few questions for you, Static."

"Oh, sure." I took a sip of my coffee. "What?"

"Why are you doing this? Not this current project, but the heroism."

"I dunno," I said. I'd been thinking about it, so at least I had some kind of an answer. "I bet if you'd asked me a few days ago, I woulda said like it was my responsibility or something, like there's all these bad guys, gang bangers with powers, so the city automatically needs a good guy with powers. But then Francis called me out on it, that I was just having fun and not fixing any real problems."

"I would say Ebon is a real problem," Dr. Lobner said gently.

I rubbed the back of my neck through the hood. "Yeah, but what if me and Gear had started figuring out how powers work and how to undo them right after the big bang? Maybe we coulda had a cure before Ebon ever attacked." Then those National Guard guys and the police officers wouldn't have— "Wait." I interrupted my own train of thought. "Ebon _is_ a problem? He's locked up."

A stern look came over the doctor's face. "He escaped a few days ago."

Suddenly I felt cold, sweaty. "But they had him lit up. How'd he get out?"

"I don't know. I assumed you knew he was out."

I got up, sparks dancing uncontrollably around my fingers. I'd put him away and taken all the credit. He was probably recovering still from the exposure to light, but sooner or later he was going to come after me.

"No, I didn't." _Why hadn't anyone contacted me?_ I thought and then answered my own question: _they don't have a way to_. I felt around for my plate, remembered it was melted. "Sorry, but I have to go. I'll send you an email, okay?"

"Of course," Dr Lobner said. "I understand."

I thanked her and ran back outside. Someone had taken my manhole lid, but it wasn't hard to find another one. I hopped on and radioed Richie. No answer. But that didn't mean anything. I'd busted his helmet and he might not have fixed it yet.

I aimed myself at the lab and tried the shockvox again after a minute or so, hoping one of the techs would pick up if Richie was away from the device. Nothing.

There were a million reasons Richie might not pick up the shockvox. Maybe he was in public as Richie, not Gear. Maybe he was testing some new invention. Maybe he was on the can.

I slingshotted myself between the buildings and landed with a crash outside the labs. The doors opened at a thought and I let myself in.

"Gear! Gear, are you here?"

The techs all turned to look at me and Richie's helmeted head popped up at a work station at the far end of the room.

He got up, started jogging over to me. "What happened?"

"Ebon escaped."

Richie stopped in his tracks. "When?"

"I dunno. A few days ago."

"What about the others?"

I shook my head. "Dunno."

"Right." Richie looked over his shoulder. "Backpack. Call the prison." The robot beeped from the far side of the room and Richie pulled me over to sit at his work station with him. The techs tried to pretend they weren't eavesdropping.

"Okay, let's think about this for a sec," Richie said. "It's been a few days. He hasn't done anything yet, so it could be he's not planning anything, at least not in the near future. And whatever he does, I doubt he'll do it without his crew."

"Yeah, but what's he gonna do?" I was relieved but still not thinking straight.

Richie didn't say anything and it was really hard to guess what he was thinking with his helmet display all busted.

"I think you better lay low for a while," Richie said, breaking the silence.

 **14.4 Report**

"His name is Virgil Hawkins and the partner is Richard Foley," Fade said as he handed over a slip of paper with a pair of addresses scribbled on it. Ebon took the slip, smiled.

"Well done. We move tonight."

Fade nodded. This was going to be exciting.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Welp, there it is. Ebon's out for revenge. Madelyn's probably gonna have to wait a while in coma land as the sh!t hits the fan :o

Next chapter: probably late, or short. The end of the quarter approacheth!


	15. Crisis

**15 Crisis**

Darkness, and fear.

 **15.1 Ultimatum**

I woke up the next morning wondering if I could get out of going to school somehow. Ebon was out there, and Richie thought he might come after me.

We'd talked with the prison guys and they'd said that Ebon had tried to break his followers out, but they had literally flown back to hide behind the bars. If _they_ were that scared of him, how was _I_ supposed to feel?

Not scared at all. Ebon was after Static, not Virgil Hawkins. As long as Static didn't stick his neck out, I was safe.

But I was terrified. Early on, even before his assault on the city, Ebon had killed a bunch of people, and hurt lots more, just because they'd been in his way. Because it was easier than ignoring them. And then when he'd carried out his threat, he'd killed more people just to make a statement, to show off how powerful and above the law he was. But his goal had always been stuff. Money, jewels, property... The killing was just a hurdle on his way to some other goal. Now his goal was me and I had no idea what he might do.

The real problem was Francis. He knew who I was behind the hood and the goggles, and it wasn't hard to imagine a scenario where Ebon got that information out of him. The promise of money or drugs, or a threat against him and Maria, and Francis would tell Ebon everything.

I lay in bed for a long time, wishing I could go back to sleep and avoid thinking about all this. Going to school could be a good distraction, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to pay attention.

For the first time since after the big bang, I truly felt like I was in over my head. I needed help, but not from Richie or Alva this time.

Eventually I came to a decision, got out of bed.

"Yo, Pops, can we talk about something?" I called as I went downstairs.

He didn't answer though, and neither did Sharon. Was I really that late getting up that they had already left for work and school?

Yeah, I was. The clock in the living room read quarter to nine, but all the clocks in the house ran kinda funky thanks to me. Pops's car keys were in the dish by the front door, so he had to still be here.

"Pops? Sharon?"

I went to check the clock in the kitchen and found a note on the table. Not Pop's neat print or Sharon's impossible cursive, but big block letters, kinda sloppy.

 _STATIC. I HAVE YOUR FATHER, YOUR SISTER AND YOUR PARTNER. IF YOU WISH TO SEE THEM AGAIN YOU WILL BRING ME THE MAYOR AND ONE MILLION DOLLARS. NIGHTFALL. MAPLE HILLS AMUSEMENT PARK. THE MASTER OF SPACE AND DARKNESS WILL BE WAITING._

I sat, letting the note fall to the floor. It was all I could do not to be sick. Sparks jumped between my fingers, uncontrolled as I checked again and again with my electo-sense. Nothing. I was alone in the house.

How had he figured out my identity? I'd been so careful, not showing my face, never letting anyone see my costume, always double checking with my electro-sense to make sure no one was around while I changed from Virgil to Static and vice-versa. And if I was careful, Richie was meticulous, what with the helmet and the voice-changing software. It had to be Francis.

But Ebon was practically a shadow. Even if he hadn't known or thought to go to Francis, he must have found some way to spy on us without me sensing it or Richie noticing something.

I sat up straight. There was no way he could have really caught Richie too. A super genius is always ten steps ahead, even if he doesn't let it show.

I picked up my shockvox with my power and brought it to me.

"Rich? Do you copy?" I said into the machine, my voice high and strained. "Are you there? It's an emergency." I counted to ten, then squeezed the transmit button hard in a S.O.S. pattern.

No answer. He should have been in class right now, but we'd already decided we should both keep our shockvoxes with us at all times, just in case.

I got up, started pacing and found myself saying stuff like, "Okay. Right. Do something," as though just saying it would make me know what to do.

What _was_ I supposed to do? _Should I do what he says?_ That went against everything I'd been taught about emergency situations. You always call 9-1-1, get a teacher or parent, get yourself out of the situation. The trained experts would take over.

But last time, the trained experts hadn't even come close to stopping him. It had all come down to me. I'd had help, mainly from Richie and Alva, but ultimately, _I_ had saved the day. I hadn't even thought about it at the time, I'd just done what felt natural. And after the fact, my only regret was that I hadn't been able to get to Ebon sooner, not gotten tangled up with Copycat.

What was more, if I involved the police, I would have to give up my secret identity. My grip on my identity was slipping and the worst had already happened, but if I let more people know, that made it all the more likely something like this might could happen again. Provided I got out of _this_ okay.

Unconsciously, I brought the shockvox up to my ear, ready to call Richie and ask what I should do, but caught myself as I pressed the transmit button.

"Dang it, Rich."

I dropped the 'vox on the table. Maybe if I could find Backpack, I could use it to track the signal from Richie's 'vox or his helmet or something. If he had any of those things with him, and if he wasn't underground, and if I could figure out how to use the robot.

That was a lot of complications, but at least looking for the robot was something I could _do._

I'd learned however from our last encounter with Ebon that flying around just looking for stuff wasn't the best way to solve a problem. I had to think, really sit down and think, and then act.

But I was scattered and stressed, and thinking wasn't coming easy.

"Okay, V. Get organized. What can you do?"

I got a pen and paper from the junk drawer and sat at the kitchen table, started making a list.

 _Find Backpack, track Richie?_

 _~How?_

 _~BP at gas station? Richie's house?_

 _Get police?_

 _~Give up ID_

 _~put at police risk_

 _Find Ebon. Probably at M.H. Amus. Park._

 _~Fight? Bring lights & metal stuff._

 _~Portals. Pops, Sharon, Rich could be anywhere. MH Park? Subway?_

I paused, looked at my list. I could probably beat Ebon again. The problem was that while he had my family, I couldn't touch him without him portaling away and doing something terrible to them.

 _Goal: Rescue fam. before facing E._

But that was easier said than done. I needed help, but from who? Turning to Alva gave me the same problem as turning to the police—giving up my identity. I could lie to him, but it would have to be a heck of a good lie for him to just give me a pile of military robots to go rescue a bunch of randos. With my powers I was likely to ruin the bots before they did me any good anyway. The Alva techs could probably track Richie with Backpack, so I made a note of that on my list.

If only I knew a shapeshifter, someone who could pretend to be Mayor Taggarty but then help me take Ebon down so fast he couldn't portal away.

Then it hit me. Someone I knew, a bang baby, who had a stake in Ebon's kidnapping, who I could trust with my secret identity. Adam.

I didn't know what his powers were or if he'd be able to help at all, but he was more grown up than me and maybe he would know the best thing to do.

 **15.2 Cry For Help**

Adam was in his studio, playing with the bass line of his new song. He had a gig coming up in a few days and he wanted to surprise his fans with something new and kinda different. He'd just bought a looping pedal and the ways it could add complexity to a song were really neat, but it also meant using simpler beats for every looped line to avoid a mushy sound.

The phone rang and Adam looked up in surprise. It was too early in the morning for someone in the music biz to be calling him, and Sharon and his non-music friends would be working or in class right now.

He turned off the keyboard and answered the phone.

"Adam? It's Virgil." The words were a little fuzzy, like he was calling on a bad cell connection.

Adam raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Can you come over? It's Sharon. I... I need your help."

Adam's mouth went dry and his composure slipped a little. He pulled himself together. "What happened? Is she okay?" Adam's first thought was that she'd been in an accident. The only reason Virgil would call him was if Sharon couldn't and Robert was too busy. In his mind's eye, Adam saw Sharon dying in a hospital bed, her dad sitting next to her in tears while Virgil called from a crummy hospital phone outside.

"I dunno. Just..." The line went fuzzy.

"What?"

"...my house... as possible." Even through the fuzz, Virgil sounded like he was on the edge of freaking out. Adam didn't know the kid that well, just that he was a goof and a nerd and told lame jokes.

"I'll be there in ten," he shouted through the bad connection and hung up. He got his van out of the parking garage and drove to Sharon's house, using all his mental discipline to stay on the road and not run over anybody.

Virgil opened the door for him before he even put the van in park, and locked it again once Adam was inside. He looked tense.

"What's up, V-man? Where's Sharon?" Adam asked, feeling tense himself.

The kid held out a piece of paper. "Ebon has her."

Adam took the paper without looking at it. "What."

"He took her and Pops and my friend Richie and if I don't bring him the mayor and a million bucks, he says I'm never gonna see them again," Virgil said in a rush, barely stopping to breathe. "And, like, I know you don't wanna get involved in this, that you shouldn't have to, but Ebon's got them and I don't know what he's gonna do with them."

Virgil looked away, addressing the sofa. "I kinda overheard you telling Pops that you were a bang baby. I don't know what your powers are, or if you even have any, but I really don't want to face Ebon alone and I don't know who else I can ask."

"Jesus, Virgil." Adam ran a hand over his head. "Why would Ebon take Sharon?"

"To get to me."

"You?"

Virgil held up two fingers and a blue-white spark jumped between them.

Adam's mouth fell open. "You're Static."

 **15.3 Prisoner One**

Richie had played computer games that were similar to his current situation. In these games you were trapped in a room, with only a vague idea as to how you got there, your one goal to escape. The problem was that in the games, you _knew_ there was a way to escape because it was a game and no one would make a game with no way to win. This wasn't a game, and Richie wasn't sure he had a way to win.

He was alone, in the dark, in a room about eight feet square with a ceiling low enough for him to touch with his fingertips if he jumped. The walls were cement, and the ceiling felt like metal, cold and smooth. The only thing in the space besides himself was a bucket, which he was currently using as a chair, but he had a feeling that pretty soon he would be using it for a different purpose.

It was better than having no bucket at all, he guessed, but it also meant that his captor meant to keep him locked up for more than a few hours.

Given the total lack of doors and light sources, Richie could say with some certainty who his kidnapper had to be.

Ebon must have figured out his identity, which made it safe to assume he had figured out Virgil's as well. This meant there were two possible scenarios going on right now. Either Ebon had both him and Virgil locked up, or he only had Richie locked up.

For the first scenario, Richie was pretty sure they were both boned. Ebon could keep them locked up indefinitely, staving off misbehavior with threats against their families.

Things were more hopeful in the second scenario. Virgil was out there, with all his tools and resources at his disposal. Well, all his resources minus Richie. The problem was that Ebon would be coercing him in some way, most likely threatening to do something unspeakable to Richie if he didn't. Richie hoped that this _was_ the case, because given Ebon's bias towards metahumans, it was possible that Ebon wouldn't involve anybody else. He wasn't sure he could forgive himself if anything happened to Robert or Sharon.

Either way, he figured he was pretty safe for the moment, considering Ebon hadn't killed him yet.

Assuming Virgil was free, the next logical question was what Ebon planned on extorting from him. Richie realized however it didn't really matter what Ebon wanted, because there was no way Virgil would go along with it, whatever _it_ was. No, the real thing to think about was how Virgil would react to the extortion. He wasn't going to take it well. He wouldn't give in, and he wouldn't go thundering in for a fight without thinking either. He would make a plan as best he could and carry it out.

Richie shifted his position, so his head rested on his left fist rather than his right and set to thinking up plans Virgil might think of, and in a separate track, imagining the scene where his friend tore off the metal roof of his prison in a flash of angelic light and flew them both to safety.

 **15.4 New Teammate**

Adam's power was really cool. He could stretch himself into all kinds of shapes, make himself bigger or smaller to a certain degree. The drawbacks were that he didn't have very good control and that in his stretchy form, he looked an awful lot like Ebon. Really, his power was kind of like a watered-down version of Ebon's, minus the portals and light sensitivity. Maybe Richie could explain why that was after we rescued him.

"I don't see why I need a superhero name. I'm not gonna do this again," Adam said, adjusting his mask in the mirror. It was just an old tie with holes cut in it that went over his eyes, but I figured that would be enough—he didn't really look like himself when he was all stretched out.

"Yeah, but if the public does hear about this, you don't want them knowing your identity too, right?"

Adam grunted. "Guess not." He took off the mask and stuck it in the back pocket of his jeans.

I finished stuffing my costume into my backpack on top of the miscellaneous junk already in there. "Meet you at the station."

Adam hadn't been able to come up with anything better than I had, so we were going to start out with my original plan of trying to track down Richie using Backpack. He got in his van and headed for the abandoned gas station, while I walked towards Richie's house, looking for a good place to change without being seen.

I found some bushes on the edge of a neighbor's yard, switched into my costume and borrowed a trash can lid for transportation. I really had to get a replacement plate from Alva.

It took a little hunting to find Richie's house, since I'd only been there once before, but eventually I did find it. I landed on the roof and scanned for people inside. The house was empty, and I couldn't see or sense anybody in the neighboring houses, so I dropped down to the back porch and picked open the deadbolt, hoping Richie's folks were just at work and not kidnapped by Ebon. If he was after me, they should have been safe, right?

I reached out with my electro-sense again, scanning for electronics this time. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the main part of the house, but I did find Richie's shockvox abandoned next to his bed.

For some reason, that got me all choked up more than anything. Richie was always just _there,_ ready to hang out or talk about stuff. He'd been there for me when my mom died, even though we'd only just met a few months before then. I'd never considered the possibility that Richie might someday not be there. Or Sharon. I hadn't thought about that either. She'd put off going to university to help out at home, opting for community college instead so she could cook dinner and do some cleaning... take care of me and Pops, really.

And Pops. Yeah, I'd thought about what it might be like if he wasn't around, but that didn't make it any less sad. He was an anchor. For me and Sharon of course, but for so many other people too. People at the center and around the neighborhood... Even Richie had let it slip that he wished he could have had Pops for a dad. If something happened to him, everything was going to drift apart.

And something _was_ going to happen to him if I didn't figure this out.

I got up, not sure how long I'd been sitting on Richie's bed, lost in thought. Too long. Adam would be waiting for me at the gas station. I grabbed the shockvox and my trash can lid and zoomed off, making sure to lock the door behind me.

I found Adam sitting on the couch in the gas station, Backpack resting on his knees, Richie's helmet and skates sitting on the table. He was fiddling with the robot intently, probably trying to turn it on.

"Hey," I said, getting his attention, and tossed Richie's shockvox to him. "It's all voice commands." I nodded at the robot. "Backpack, on. Scan for Gear."

The robot beeped and stood up on its spindly spider legs, crept from Adam's lap onto the table. A few lights blinked on its outer shell, followed by a negative beep. I hadn't really expected that to work.

"Right." I picked up the helmet, turned it on. "I want you to take Backpack and search the subway. Backpack can scan for life, though its range isn't that great." I took off my goggles and put on the helmet, squinting at the internal display. It would have been faster and easier for me to search the subway myself, but there was other, more dangerous stuff I'd rather take on myself than force upon Adam.

I spoke to the robot. "Backpack, admin override, admit new user."

A line of text flashed on the inside of the helmet. _Admin: Static. Password:_

"It's full of stars." This was the password Richie had chosen for me.

On the table, Backpack gave an affirmative beep. _New user name:_

"Rubberband Man."

Adam's superhero name appeared on the screen, followed by _Initiate voice recognition training sequence._

I took off the helmet and handed it to Adam. "Read the text inside the helmet, and Backpack should be able to recognize your voice. It might be kinda buggy at first, but it gets better over time."

Adam turned the helmet over in his hands. "Your buddy Richie made all this?" he asked, like he couldn't quite believe it.

"Yeah, he did."

Adam shook his head in amazement, put the helmet on and stumbled through the text. Richie called it the "Harvard Sentences" and apparently it contained every possible sound in the English language.

Once he was done I helped him clip Backpack to his shoulders, briefed him on what I knew about Ebon's use of the subway system and went on to explain the limits of Richie's tech.

"Backpack should be able to boost the signal on the 'voxes, but we probably won't be able to do voice messages while you're underground. You should be able to ping my 'vox even with a weak signal though."

I showed him how to use the ping mode by pressing extra hard on the transmit button, which would make the other 'vox vibrate and light up. Together, we worked out a ping code we could use, since neither of us knew Morse. Three short for a check-in and a response to a check-in, two long for finding the prisoners and a whole bunch of short pings to call for backup.

Finally we split up. Adam put his jacket on over Backpack and tucked the helmet under his arm as he walked back out to his van, while I snuck out the back and started flying towards the old amusement park.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

A little late, but here it is! Virgil has a plan, kind of...


	16. Rescue

**16 Rescue**

Rosalee Brady makes a note on her English 10 attendance sheet. This is the first unexcused absence Virgil has had, but it fits with his trend of tardies and falling grades. It's sad, but it's par for the course with Lakeside students. They hit that certain age and all of a sudden the gangs got interested in them and it took some creative political gymnastics to stay out of their grip.

She's had real hope for Virgil though, given who his father is. Maybe she can talk with Mr Hawkins, intervene somehow before she loses another one.

 **16.1 Rubberband Man**

Adam felt ridiculous. Terrified and ridiculous. He was a musician, not a vigilante. He knew he shouldn't have gone along with Virgil's plan, but the kid had seemed so serious and adult and had made some pretty convincing arguments as to why it was actually safer not to involve the police.

Now that Adam thought about it, Virgil had sounded an awful lot like Ivan when Ivan was trying to play him. Adam could only hope that he'd been duped into doing the right thing for a change. It was far too late to turn back now.

It was weird how Virgil had changed. Or maybe not changed, but revealed this side of himself that Adam never would have guessed at. From goofy nerd to take-charge action hero.

Adam wasn't a take-charge type. He liked to think of himself as laid back, go-with-the-flow, the kind of guy who did best on his own. Not really a go-getter, more of a plodder. But Virgil seemed to assume that because he had "powers," this automatically qualified him to be a superhero.

And so, because Sharon's life was on the line and Adam was as far from a heartless sociopath as you could get, he found himself wandering through the abandoned subway system on massive strides, a pair of flashlights in hand.

The subway was dank and spooky, but not exactly scary. Quiet mostly and surreal. It wasn't too long before Adam found the shanty town Virgil had told him about—the platform the Metabreed had called home.

"Backpack, scan for life."

On his back, the robot gave a negative beep. Adam felt a little weird talking to a machine. How much did it understand? Was it like a dog and only knew a few set commands, or was it more like a little kid and understood more than it let on? If it was that smart, should he even be calling it an "it"?

"Can you keep scanning every so often, let me know if you pick up anything?"

The robot beeped an affirmative and a line of text appeared on the inside of the helmet. _Initiating periodic scans. 45 sec. intervals. Range: 35'._

Adam checked in with Virgil, who was probably at the amusement park already, and moved on once he got a response.

And then for a long while, nothing. Just the soft, slow sounds of his footsteps through the tunnels and the faint and distant echos of traffic and trains and running water that existed just on the threshold of hearing. The flashlights lit his way, but the helmet had night vision built in too, just in case.

Finally, the robot beeped. _Human-like electrical signature, 3 o'clock._

Adam stopped, looked to his right. There was a narrow passageway connected to the main tunnel.

"What do you mean, 'human-like'?" Adam asked, but the robot didn't respond. He shined the flashlights down the smaller tunnel, shrugged and went in.

"Hello?" Adam called. Virgil had made it pretty clear that Ebon wasn't likely to be in the subway, even if his prisoners were. He would want to keep them somewhere safe, but far away from the place he expected Static to be. Adam felt pretty safe. Worried, but safe.

He waited for a second, listening to his own echos, then took a couple of massive stretchy steps forward, letting the robot direct him.

"Sharon? Robert?"

This time Adam was sure he heard something in the distance, but before he could figure out what it might have been a dark shape flitted before him.

Instantly, Adam's heart went into overdrive and he swung the flashlights around, trying to catch the strange shape.

"Get out of here!" a male voice shouted, strangely muffled.

"Ebon?" Adam tried to sound challenging, but ended up sounding terrified, even to himself.

The shadow flickered again, seeming to disappear into the wall. Adam spun in a circle, trying to figure out where it had gone.

"Where's Sharon?" he asked the tunnel at large. His voice was more stable now, braver sounding. Text flashed inside the helmet. _Identifying metahuman. Result: Unknown._ So, it wasn't Ebon.

"This is your last warning," the shadow said.

Adam turned to face the voice coming out of the wall, shining the flashlights in one hand, making a massive fist with the other. The shadow emerged from the wall and Adam swung a fist at it out of defense as it lunged at him. His deformed hand struck the wall, passing right through the shadow, sizzling with pain. Adam yelped and then screamed as the shadow pushed itself into his body.

It was like a hot steel rod had jammed itself inside him. Purely by instinct, Adam pulled away from the pain, almost splitting himself in two to do so. He stretched away, landing in a puddle on the ground, then pulled himself together and stood. He still had on the helmet, but the robot was on the floor somewhere, its metal claws clicking against the cement.

The shadow swore and pressed himself into him again, but Adam knew what to expect now. He pulled himself apart, so the shadow was left standing in a gap in Adam's body, as Adam strode away on stretchy legs.

"Stop it!" Adam shouted as the shadow came after him a third time.

"You shouldn't be here," the shadow shouted back as Adam sidestepped him. He screamed in frustration and aimed a kick at Adam's crotch. It was like getting hit with a leaf blower blowing hot air and pine needles. Adam winced, but it wasn't like he had to curl up in a ball and cry. His stretchy anatomy softened the blow, that was for sure.

"Backpack?" Adam called out as he backed away from the angry shadow. "Go find Sharon, okay?"

 _Searching_... _Located_ the helmet display read, followed by the light clinks of the robot's claws fading into the distance.

Adam didn't know what all tricks the robot had up its sleeves, but at least he knew it would be able to find her and tell him where she was. As he strode down the tunnel, leading the shadow away from the scene, Adam depressed the transmit button two times. Now all he had to do was find an exit and radio Virgil. And get this shadow off his back.

 **16.2 A Chance to Talk**

The flight to the amusement park took longer than I expected. I'd been there once or twice as a kid, but that had been ages ago and even after looking up the address on a map, it still took some searching before I found the place.

It was creepy as heck. No one had bothered to take down the sign over the entrance, and the years of weather and vandals hadn't been kind. I vaulted over the boarded up entrance and landed in the main walkway. An information hut stood in the middle of the walkway and signposts pointed to the ruins of rollercoasters, once gaudy and exciting, now rusted and ominous, ready to blow down in the next big wind storm.

I went up to the information hut, pretended to ring a bell like in a hotel. "Ding, ding! Anyone around?" I crouched down, placed a hand on the ground and reached out with my electro-sense, as far as I could stretch it. I found _something_ in the old haunted house ride, just out of sight on the other side of the games stalls. It felt more like a spot in the world where physics forgot what it was supposed to be doing than like the weak signature a living creature gave off. It had to be Ebon, or at least one of his portals.

I hopped back on my trash can, wishing now I'd thought to supercharge myself before coming here. I had taken the time however to jam under my coat as many lightbulbs, LEDs, and random bits of metal as I could. I did have a zap-cap in there as well, but that plus the lights was gonna be my secret weapon. So for the time being I kept my coat closed and mainly used my electro-sense to "see" my way around inside the haunted house. Some wiry arcs between my fingers helped light the way.

Ebon was waiting for me in the vampire-themed room, a pit of darkness in the gloom.

"Static." His voice was deep, echo-y. "You still have time to meet my demands."

"Right." I upped the juice a little, careful not to light up the stuff under my coat. Ebon was leaning against a fake coffin, features totally indistinct. "Before I do anything, let's open up a dialogue." This was a phrase I'd heard Pops use from time to time.

The shadows shifted a little. "What do you want to talk about, hero?" Somehow, he managed to make _hero_ sound like a bad thing, just like Francis had.

I held up one sparking finger, counting off my demands. "I need to know my family's safe. I need to know what you plan on doing with the money and the mayor if I get them to you and what you plan on doing with my family if I don't. And yes, Gear counts as my family."

Ebon drew closer, pulling himself together, more solid, the electricity in him acting weird. "You're making this more complicated than it has to be," the darkness said. "All you _need_ to know is that if you don't comply with my requests, I will kill your family. And yes, Gear counts as your family."

My breath caught in my chest and my dim arc light flickered. "How..." I choked and cleared my throat. "How do I know you haven't killed them already? Or that you'll let them go again if I comply? Why should I do this and not take you out here and now?" I pushed at the metal in the roof overhead, making it creak, threatening to break it open and let in the daylight.

Ebon lunged at me, a solid cloak of shadow wrapping itself around my arms and chest. It was only the stuff under my coat that kept him from crushing me as I pushed against him with the magnets and bits of metal. Lightning flashed in miniature, but it didn't seem to hurt him.

"You want to escalate this situation?" he said into my ear. "When you already stand to lose so much? I own you, Virgil Hawkins."

He released me. I stumbled, shards of glass and metal tinkling on the floor around my feet. Thank goodness for the kevlar vest, or I woulda been cut to shreds.

He was right. He knew my identity, had no reason to answer my questions. I was left guessing, ignorant and helpless.

But not totally alone. Ebon had lost his followers, but I had Adam, and Pops and Sharon and Richie. I had something worth fighting for.

I got the trash can lid under my feet, started pressing upwards with my power.

"Newsflash, blob-face. We don't do slavery in the twenty-first century." I exploded upwards and out through the roof in a burst of sunlight and broken boards, half expecting to find myself portaled to God-knows-where.

The launch sent me way too high, and for a moment I really wished I'd taken up Richie's offer of rocket skates, because that ground was coming up way too fast. I landed hard and rolled, bruising my arm and shoulder, but the adrenaline was kicking in and I somersaulted right into a run. The ground opened up under my feet, but I had my lid ready and managed to hopscotch off it and onto the far side of the portal.

Now I was done for. I was on my feet, running away from the portal and the solid shadow that was gliding towards me across the empty walkway. My lid was stuck inside the portal, slowly getting dragged down despite my efforts to keep it afloat.

"You can't run, Static!"

 _Uh-oh. Portal_ , I thought, but instead of another vortex opening beneath me, a shadowy arm whipped towards me. I dove and rolled again, thanking my past self for having the foresight to train in stuff like this. The ropy arm smacked down on the sidewalk next to me as I got up, panting.

Ebon swore at me and kept on coming.

If only I'd supercharged. Then I could smash him to pieces with a roller coaster. But he wasn't at a hundred and ten percent either out here in the sunshine. He hadn't even closed his portal.

"Ha, ha!" I laughed as I ducked under another swinging limb, sensing it without seeing. He couldn't close the portal, not with the lid still stuck in it. And he would have made a second portal by now if he could have. Ebon without portals was just a super stretchy, super strong shadow guy largely immune to electric shocks and physical blows.

Inside my pants pocket, I felt the shockvox buzz. Once, twice. Perfect. Instantly I had a plan.

I found a loose storm grate and paused to pry it up. Rather than hopping on, I flung it at him.

Ebon didn't even try to avoid the grate and it passed right through him. I _felt_ it go through him, through that weird violation of physics he called his body. He and the plate both slowed down and I backed away, keeping my focus on the grate and any other random junk I could move that wasn't bolted to the ground. And the lid plugging up the portal.

But Ebon was inexorable. Ten yards away, then eight, seven. Everything I threw at him slowed him down, but he didn't stop. I ached, but he had to be hurting too. Too much maybe. I had to harass him more, get him angry.

I shouted at the supervillain. "Hey, blob-face! Why'd you ask me to get the money for you? You so out of touch you gotta get the good guy to do your dirty work for you?"

Ebon called back, his voice loud enough to carry without shouting. "I'm teaching you a lesson, child. A lesson in power you have thus far refused to fully understand."

"Man, I know all about power. AC _and_ DC." I stopped backing away, extended a hand towards him, created a massive arc between us, then let it sputter out. Well, not so much I _let_ it, as it sputtered out on its own. I really was out of juice. I had pushed myself further than I had meant. I wasn't going to pass out, but the fight was out of me. I felt the portal outside the haunted house close as I lost my grip on the trash can lid.

I stood there for a moment, hand extended, cringed as though in panic.

"Are you done, boy?" Ebon asked. He was hunched over, small and puckered-looking, but there was no shaking, no pain in his voice.

I turned like I was going to run. Ebon was a predator, and he did exactly what I expected a predator would do. He pounced, wrapping one whiplike arm around me, pinning me to the ground on my knees.

"There is more than one kind of power," Ebon said softly, gloating. I wanted to snarl right back, tell him I was being facetious with my AC/DC comment, but that wouldn't get me what I wanted.

"Please," I gasped. "Just take me to them. Let me know they're safe and I'll do whatever you ask."

Ebon smiled, I swear. Maybe I felt it with my electro-sense, or managed to catch a glimpse of his real face inside the shadows, but I swear he smiled.

"Since you ask so nicely."

A portal opened up beneath us, strange and dizzying. Not only because I went in feet-first and came out head-first, but from the weird, incorrect way electricity was moving inside the portal. I'd gotten used to sensing a constant background buzz, the tiny bits of static charge that built up on anything that moved, the steady flow of power cables and batteries, the fitful sparks of living things... Inside the portal, none of my senses made sense. There was no up or down, no understanding what I was seeing or hearing, just unpleasantness impossible to describe.

Fortunately it didn't last long, and I found myself in the cool dark of the abandoned subway.

 **16.3 Self-Reliance**

Sharon was afraid. That was all there was to it. She didn't know where she was or how she'd got there or why. Just that it was dark and cold and there was no way out. No one answered her screams.

But she was strong, and wasn't going to give her captor the satisfaction of hearing her sob. She sat on the cold, hard floor and centered herself, preparing for the encounter that would eventually come. He (Sharon assumed her captor was a he) wouldn't hold her here like this indefinitely. No matter how perverted or skewed his logic, he had to have a reason for kidnapping her. This cell was just an attempt to manipulate her, make her feel like she was in a position of weakness, more likely to comply and obey the man who held the keys to freedom and light and warmth.

Then there was a sound, a clink of metal against cement. Sharon tensed a little, but she didn't jump or shout out. She followed the clinking thing, turning her head as it got closer.

Clink, clink-clink... clank.

The sound changed as the whatever-it-was moved up the outside of the cell and onto the roof. Then a small grinding sound and a tiny green light appeared above her and Sharon saw her cell for the first time. It was about what she imagined. Small, shoddy, dank.

Her eyes adjusted and she realized the light was attached to a snake-like metal cable that had slithered in through a gap under the roof. The cable twitched and a point of laser light appeared on the floor, stretched into an S shape, then blinked out and formed a second letter, then a third, spelling something out on the cement floor.

 _SHARON_

Sharon crept closer, her heart in her throat. She thought she had understood what was going on, but now... What was this thing? Some machine controlled by her captor?

 _THIS IS A ROBOT BUILT BY GEAR SENT TO FREE YOU_

"Gear?" Sharon whispered. "The superhero?" Suddenly she was way more afraid than she had been. She had been prepared for a regular psychopath. Dangerous, but ultimately human. But if Gear was involved, that meant she was facing a metahuman threat, something beyond dangerous. Reflexively, her thoughts went to Adam, but the light on the floor kept tracing out letters, reminding her that she needed to stay focused on the present.

 _YES_ _CLIMB UP ONCE OUT FOLLOW ME_

A metal limb wedged itself into the gap under the roof, then another and the whole roof lifted up a few inches on one side.

Sharon stood, jumped and grabbed the top of the wall, got an arm through the gap under the roof. The robot gave a creaking mechanical hum as it wedged its domed body under the roof and lifted up. The gap was just barely wide enough for Sharon to squeeze through, but she managed.

She lowered herself down to the ground on the other side and a moment later there was a clang as the roof fell back into place.

"Thanks."

The robot beeped in response as it brought the laser pointer back around to shine at Sharon's feet again.

 _I GOT YOUR BACK LITERALLY_

"What-?" Sharon started to ask, cutting herself off with a muffled shriek. The robot jumped and hit her square in the back, its metal limbs wrapping themselves around her shoulders and waist.

 _GO_

A spot of green light appeared on the ground a few feet away and Sharon shuffled after it, down the tunnel.

"Are Gear and Static here?" Sharon asked after a few seconds, the silly thought crossing her mind that she should get an autograph for Virgil, since he was such a fan of Dakota's heroes.

The robot on her back beeped twice, the first a happy chime, the second an angry buzz.

"Gear is, but not Static. Right. And I'm here because...?"

The robot made a noise that sounded suspiciously like _I dunno_.

"Are you gonna take me to Gear?"

The robot peeped and Sharon sighed, resigning herself to be patient until it led her to Gear. She had a whole bunch more questions than that, but this robot was as bad as that beepy robot from Star Wars. It wasn't going to give _her_ any straight answers, but its owner would be able to interpret its inexplicable chirps.

It was kinda weird that Gear was here (wherever "here" was) but not Static. Static without Gear was pretty normal, but the helmeted kid never fought crime solo. Sharon wasn't even sure what his superpower was. Maybe he could talk to machines?

But more importantly, what did _she_ have to do with Gear? Adam had to be involved somehow. He was the only bang baby she knew in real life, and even if he swore up and down that he wasn't going to do crime or fight it, there were a bunch of ways he could have gotten dragged into it.

"Of course," Sharon whispered to herself. One of those supervillains had to have found out about Adam, and they thought they were gonna ransom her, or force Adam to do something. Adam and Static were probably beating up the bad guy right now, while Gear used his robot to rescue her.

In some weird way, Sharon felt honored, first that the villain thought that Adam brought in enough dough that he could afford a ransom, and second that she was the one thing in Adam's life that might be considered invaluable. It was kinda sweet.

She was still scared of course, more scared than she'd been in years, but it was a relief knowing that she had help. She wasn't going to have to face a psychopath or a supervillain all alone. She had the robot, Gear was nearby, and Adam was out there doing what he could.

Sharon crept down the tunnel, one hand on the wall, her eyes glued to the spot of green light on the floor. She stopped when the spot hit a wall and climbed up it, outlining a second cell, a box made of bricks and cement and cinderblocks, covered with a corrugated tin roof. More blocks pinned the roof in place.

Sharon put a hand to her mouth. "There's others?" she whispered. "Can you get them out?"

The robot chimed and loosened its grip on her shoulders and waist. Sharon set it on the ground and watched as it scaled the wall and wedged open the roof.

There was a yelp of surprise from inside the box and a familiar young male voice cried out, "Backpack?"

"Richie?" Sharon shrieked in shock.

"Sharon?"

It was definitely Richie. But why would her captor kidnap Richie if he was trying to get to Adam? Sharon pushed that thought aside—she had more important problems right now.

"I'm gonna get you out, don't worry," she said, trying her best to sound brave and mature and in control.

There was a crunch and a creak as the robot (backpack?) lifted up the tin roof and a skinny pale arm appeared. Richie hauled himself out and landed none too gracefully on the ground next to her. Even in the dim light of the robot he looked shaken, the poor kid.

Sharon helped him to his feet, gave him a quick hug as the robot climbed down from the cell.

"You okay?"

Richie pushed his glasses up his nose. "Yeah." He looked around. "Sharon, what's going on?"

"I dunno. But we're getting out of here, okay?" She didn't want to freak him out any more than he already was.

"Right. Is any-" He started to speak, but the robot interrupted him with a howl like an air raid siren.

Sharon jumped, shrieked a little.

"Not good, so not good," Richie said as the robot went silent again. The green lights dotting its shell had all gone red, except for the green laser pointed down the tunnel.

Sharon picked up the robot, slinging it across her back and grabbed Richie by the hand, dragging him along. They slogged through the tunnel, half running, half shuffling in the dark.

"It's gonna be okay," she gasped between steps. She almost told him about Gear and Static being on their side, but she didn't want to get his hopes up. The heroes weren't infallible and she didn't want to risk him relaxing and slowing down just because help might be on its way. For now it was up to them, up to her, to save their butts from whatever had made the robot freak out.

Sharon and Richie both screamed as the floor opened up beneath their feet.

 **16.4 Disclosure**

I reached into my coat and dug out a surviving bike light. Dim red light filled the tunnel, empty except for me and Ebon and a boxy cinderblock house. My electro-sense told me that the little house was empty for now, but Ebon was preparing a portal inside it. The portal opened and then closed, leaving a living person inside the house. The whole maneuver took about a second.

A new portal appeared at my feet, this one leading into the little house as well.

"Enter. You have two minutes."

I stepped into the portal, cringing at the strangeness. The sensation didn't last as long this time and once it faded I found myself inside the little house next to my pops.

He turned to face me, the anger and fear on his face made terrible and scary by the red light. I wanted to die of guilt, right then and there.

"Pops..." I ripped off the hood and goggles.

"Virgil." He pulled me into an embrace. There wasn't any anger in his voice, more like sadness.

"I'm so sorry." I couldn't help it, I was getting choked up, my vision blurring into red and black smears.

"No, I'm sorry." He let me go, held me by my shoulders at arm's length so I was forced to look him in the eye. "I haven't been there for you, Virgil. I turned a blind eye when I shouldn't have."

I shook my head. "I shoulda told you."

"And I should have been the kind of father you would want to tell."

A noise escaped me, something in between a laugh and a sob. We were in an endless cycle of who could feel guiltier.

"I'm gonna get you out of here, I promise."

I got out the shockvox, pressed the transmit button a bunch of times in a row. Ebon was elsewhere in the subway, just on the edge of my range, and I had no clue what had become of Adam.

"Ebon?" Pops asked as I got a charged zapcap out of my coat, extra glad now that I hadn't used it earlier.

I pulled the tab on the 'cap. "Yeah. I don't think he has his gang though." The buzz in my chest grew to a comfortable level, almost like I'd gotten a full night's sleep. "Look out."

I punched the roof off of Ebon's mini jail, folded it into an upside-down V and set it down to make a ramp over the wall.

I had just started to help Pops climb out when I felt it, another portal opening up beneath us. There was no way two minutes had gone by so fast.

"Go, go!"

Pops scrambled over the peak of the ramp and slid down the far side as Ebon emerged from the portal.

"Trying to trick me, Static? You'll need to try a little harder than this."

An invisible arm wrapped itself around my leg, lifted me into the air. Out of instinct I tried to shock him, forgetting how ineffective it had been earlier.

Ebon laughed. "You've got iron in you, boy. Maybe I can't bend you, but iron is brittle and breaks."

He threw me across the tunnel, straight for the opposite wall. _Stop, please stop_. I hit with a thud and stuck there like a magnet to a fridge. I'd managed to kill most of my momentum using the metal stuff on my person, but I still got the wind knocked out of me.

I coughed and choked out, "Malleable."

"What?"

I raised my voice, reaching out to the magnetic fields around me, changing them, strengthening them. "Iron isn't brittle, it's malleable." I tipped over the bent roof, sending it crashing down on top of him. Ebon portalled away, moving to stand next to Pops, and I crammed the roof in after him, plugging the portal and making him sidestep the metal sheet.

Ebon laughed at me. "All the same, boy, I will break you."

I half saw, half felt him reach out and wrap one rubbery arm around Pops, squeezing and lifting him off the ground.

"No!" I let myself slide down the wall, landing on one knee. A second arm slammed into me, pinning me in place.

"You see, Static? This is why we shouldn't get too attached to humans. They're so fragile and require so much care." He squeezed harder and Pops cried out in pain, a sound I didn't ever want to hear coming from him. "And in the end, they just end up dying."

He squeezed harder, Pop's scream cutting off in a spluttering cough. Something inside me did break then. I wrenched the roof out of the portal, sending it edge on through Ebon's chest. I was going to tear him to shreds.

A boom sounded somewhere down the tunnel, like a firework going off, but I ignored it, slicing into Ebon with the roof again. His grip on Pops was loosening, but I couldn't make him let go. He was getting bigger and bigger and more diffuse. I pushed against the giant hand holding me down just as I slammed him with the roof again.

But my grip on the roof was weakening as I ran low on juice. The sheet of corrugated metal stuck inside him and I couldn't pull it out. He had to be in an incredible amount of pain, but still he kept going, tightening his hold on me and Pops again.

A portal opened up in the ground, halfway between me and Pops and Ebon snaked into it, still holding onto us, though his focus was elsewhere.

"Pops!" I shouted, but he didn't answer. "No, Pops, c'mon. Wake up." I struggled against Ebon's coils, but it was no use.

And then something metal came out of the portal, something with a battery inside. Backpack. Or at least half of it, flashing red and green lights, blinding in the pitch dark.

Where was Adam? I tried to piece together what might have happened to him as I pulled the mangled robot up and out of the portal, bringing it closer to me. It was beeping in a steady rhythm, then faster and faster until the beeps merged into a continuous stream of sound.

"What-?"

The robot exploded.

For a moment I was blinded, deafened, knocked insensate by the blast.

Then I was on my hands and knees, ears ringing, white spots filling my vision. The air smelled like blood and smoke on top of the dank of the tunnel. Everything hurt and there was something warm and wet running down my arm and between my fingers.

I coughed, trying to breathe, too disoriented to use my electro-sense. Pops. I had to know if he was okay. I tried crawling towards where I had felt him last, but I couldn't. I hurt too much, I couldn't breathe. I lowered myself onto the cement, just to recover for a second, just to rest.

 **16.5 Close Call**

I woke up slowly. I was in the hospital again, Richie sitting next to my bed in a hospital gown and pajamas, a laptop balanced on his knees. Whatever he was working on, he was really into it, and didn't notice I was watching him.

"Hey." My voice sounded strange in my ears.

Richie looked up, then glanced at his computer again and closed the lid.

"Where's Pops and Sharon?" I asked, wincing as I sat up in bed.

"Robert's in ICU. He's gonna make it. Sharon and Adam are with him." His voice sounded strange too. I rubbed at my ear.

"What happened?" What did Richie mean, 'he was gonna make it'? Had there been a chance he _wasn't_ going to make it? The last thing I remembered was Ebon trying to crush me to death, and then... an explosion?

Richie stared off into space for a second. "Adam found Sharon and called you, but this ghosty, see-through guy chased him out of the subway. He sent Backpack to get her out and then she rescued me. Then Ebon found us and put us back in a cell like a minute later. Sharon still had Backpack, so I rigged it to blow up the cell wall. Of course Ebon came back right away, and I sent what was left of Backpack to blow him up too. I didn't realize you and Robert were on the other side of the portal." He looked down at his hands and mumbled that last bit.

"Pops?" I prompted.

"They put him under the knife as soon as he got here. Broken ribs, broken leg, internal bleeding, perforated spleen... some other stuff too. I think his back got hurt. You've got a couple cracked ribs and a popped eardrum, but that's pretty much it. Me, Sharon and Adam all got out okay. Bruised and dehydrated, but okay."

"And Ebon?"

"Missing. Ghosty guy is too." Richie fixed his glasses, stared at me for a long moment before speaking again. "We were really, really lucky, V. And, like, hindsight is twenty-twenty and everything, but I gotta know. Why didn't you call the cops?"

"Lots of reasons!" The lights flickered.

Richie handed me a zapcap so I could drain my batteries before I took out someone's life support on accident. "Like what? That Ebon told you to come alone or something? Then why'd you bring Adam?"

I lifted the tab on the zapcap and got rid of the excess juice. Richie was making me pretty mad right now, which made it hard to control.

"I didn't want to compromise our secret identities, so we don't have to worry about this happening again."

"Our identities were already compromised," Richie said, pushing his glasses up his nose again. "Ebon knows who we are, and he'll give that info to anyone who wants it. If he hasn't already."

"I didn't plan on letting him get away."

"Well, he did!" Richie shouted.

I stared at him. I'd never seen him so angry before, let alone had that anger directed at me. What right did he have, being mad at me? I'd rescued him!

"Well, sorry I'm not perfect," I shouted back. "Sorry I couldn't save you _and_ take down the bad guy."

Richie got to his feet, looking for a second like he was going to keep shouting. But then his face went blank, eyes out of focus behind his glasses. He stood still for a second, then seemed to come back to himself. Silently, he tucked the laptop under his arm and left before I could get another word in. The door closed with a solid click.

I sat and fumed for a while, thinking about how wrong Richie was, coming up with reasons why I was right, why not getting the police involved was the best thing I could have done.

But was it really? Richie had planted that seed of doubt in my mind. Now that I had time to stop and really think about it, I couldn't help but see the similarities between this situation and what had happened with Wade and the gun all those weeks ago.

If only I'd done the right thing then and gone to Pops or the police, then I wouldn't be in this mess right now. But I wouldn't have my powers either. And I _had_ done a lot of good since then, stuff I couldn't have done or wouldn't have considered doing without them.

But was saving the city and getting gangsters arrested enough to cancel out putting Pops's life at risk? Or Pops's _and_ Sharon's _and_ Richie's? How was I even supposed to measure something like that?

After a while Sharon came in, stood by the door with her arms folded. Her eyes were red and puffy.

"Richie said you were awake. I want you to come downstairs with me."

I stood, feeling wobbly and out of it. My IV was attached to a stand with wheels on it, and I leaned on that as I followed Sharon to the elevator. She led me past a nurses' station and through a set of swinging double doors to a hallway lined with windows on one side. Everything was dimly lit and quiet except for the hum of respirators and heart monitors.

We came to a stop in front of one of the windows. Pops was on the other side of the glass, lying on a bed with dozens of wires and tubes coming out of him. He looked terrible.

I felt sick to my stomach, glad for the IV stand to lean on, because otherwise I would have needed to sit down.

After a couple of painful minutes, Sharon spoke. "I don't want you playing superhero anymore, Virgil."

I glanced at her, but my eyes drifted back to the scene on the other side of the window, unable to look away for long.

"Me neither," I said, surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth. But backing out now was going to be tough.

 **16.6 Lost**

The bomb had torn Ebon to shreds. He felt like an earthworm split in half by a shovel. Much of his body was missing, and what was left was tortured and mutilated. It was days before the pain had ebbed to the point where he could form a coherent thought.

But the thoughts that he had then were traitorous. Perhaps for the first time in his new life, Ebon questioned himself. Why had his followers left him? Why did Static defy him so? Was he... wrong?

But he couldn't be. Power like his meant he had the right, no, the responsibility to rule over lesser beings. He'd been _chosen_ by some ancient, universal power to do so. But he was failing. Only the voyeuristic sycophant Fade remained with him, but that was only because he had no will, no true power of his own.

Ebon set his lone follower to tail Static and Gear, but that was only to keep him out of the way as he wandered the dark corners of the city, searching for an opportunity. A sign.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

RIP Backpack.

I'm very much looking forward to the next chapter. See you then!


	17. Beans Spilled

**17 Beans Spilled**

Shelly Sandoval stands in front of the camera, struggling to contain a smile. She's established herself as the primary Metahuman reporter, and the breaks just keep on coming. It won't be long now before the big national programs start making their offers. LA, Atlanta, Metropolis... soon the world is going to be her oyster.

"That's right, Dan. Local villain Ebon is loose on our streets again, after the failed kidnapping of Robert Hawkins, father of Dakota's resident superhero..."

 **17.1 Terms**

Richie sat at the kitchen table, his visual aids laid out before him. Helmet, rocket skates, laptop. Maggie and Sean Foley sat across from him, looking scared and angry respectively.

"You're one of _them_?" Sean shouted, finally getting the picture.

"Yeah, I am. I'm one of the heroes, and Alva's been paying me to do it. That's why I wanna give you the money-"

Sean shouted over him. "I thought I raised you better than to hang out with trash like that."

Richie's blood ran cold. "What?"

Sean swore, something so vile Richie wanted to punch him. "Human garbage and hoodlums all of 'em. Gangsters. I seen that little friend of yours with the natty hair. Don't for one second think you're gonna tell me it wasn't him that brought you there."

Richie felt his face go hot, his hands cold and clammy. Sean was right—it was Virgil's fault he was a bang baby—and yet his dad was so, so wrong.

Suddenly, Maggie laughed. "It's a joke! That's what it is, right, hun?"

Sean rolled his eyes at her, while Richie stared in disbelief. He pushed up his glasses.

"'S not a joke."

"Get out," Sean said, his bloodshot eyes meeting Richie's. "Take your money."

For a moment, Richie thought he was going to throw up, he felt so rejected. Then he reached inside himself with his power and did something terrible. He blotted out his emotions.

His shaky breath stilled, sweaty palms went dry. He got to his feet. When he spoke, his voice sounded dead, machine-like, even to himself.

"Fine. I thought I could help, but apparently not."

Sean stood as well, cursing Richie and his sub-human friends. He grabbed one of the skates and threw it at him, who calculated the trajectory and stepped out of the way.

It was disturbing, Richie thought coolly, that this was how Sean was reacting, when he'd told him only the barest minimum of his secrets—stuff he would have known already if he'd watched the news. Good thing he hadn't gone as far as he'd originally planned.

Sean threw the other skate and Richie dodged this one as well, plotting out the best way to collect his things before they got damaged.

Fear flashed in Sean's eyes and Richie deduced that he had realized the correlation between Richie being a bang baby, and his being a metahuman. He had powers and could likely beat Sean in a fight. And yet, this seemed to make Sean want to fight him all the more. Richie was something different, and therefore scary. He was also ranked low on Sean's mental hierarchy and needed to be put in his place.

It was odd that so many humans acted in such animalistic ways. Posturing and striving for dominance.

Sean marched around the table and tried to grab Richie, aiming to throw him bodily out the back door. Richie ducked under his arm and pivoted so he was standing behind the larger man. It would have been easy to end the confrontation then by putting Sean in a choke hold and bluffing and threatening him into submission. But that scenario would result in even higher tensions the next time he was forced to confront Sean, and the odds of him avoiding Sean altogether after this were very low.

No, the best course of action was to get out quickly and with minimal incident.

Sean spun, trying to catch Richie in the neck with his fist. Richie jumped backwards, landing ass and elbows on the table, and kicked Sean in the ribs, just enough to throw him off balance. With that split second he'd bought himself, he rolled off the table and moved to put it between him and Sean.

Sean shouted, swearing at him from across the table, and Richie popped his helmet over his head, tucked his laptop under his arm. Maggie was screaming too now, braced against the counter. Richie set up a sound distortion track so he wouldn't have to deal with the unnecessary input. In his head, he counted down for Sean to lose his cool and make his next move.

 _Three, two, one..._ Sean grabbed the edge of the table and flipped it so it landed on its side with a crash muffled to Richie's ears. He lunged across the now empty space, both arms outstretched. He expected Richie to evade like he had before, dodge left, towards the door and away from the capsized table, probably to make a run for it outside.

Instead, Richie brought up the laptop like a shield and batted Sean's clawing hands away. He twisted one foot around Sean's ankle, lowered the laptop and gave Sean a shove with his shoulder.

He'd calculated it perfectly. Sean stumbled, but didn't fall, grabbing the counter for support. Richie crossed the room and grabbed the skates in one fluid motion, such that the velcro fastenings on one hooked around the fastenings of the other and the pair ended up draped over his wrist, leaving him with one free hand and the other holding both skates and computer. He was also now one step from the door, which when opened, would create a barrier between him and Sean.

Sean stared at him, face red, veins standing out on his neck.

Richie deleted the sound distortion track. "I don't appreciate the aggression, Sean. I'll go, but don't expect me to be gone forever." He put a hand on the doorknob, turned it without opening the door. "And I'm calling the police if you take any of this out on Maggie. I will be watching."

With that he left, closing the door behind him. He didn't have the surveillance capabilities at the moment, but given a couple hours in the lab, he'd be able to magic up the spy gear.

Richie started walking in that direction, paused when he was certain Sean wasn't going to chase after him, and put on his skates. He landed in the Alva parking lot a few minutes later, retracted his wheels and marched into the lab. He'd developed a suitable camera design on the flight over that he could build from the materials in the lab.

Two of the techs, Troy and Victoria, were there, working on their own Alva-assigned projects. Richie ignored them and set about gathering his materials. Batteries, lenses, antennas, all kinds of things from the drawers marked _misc drone parts..._ He dumped this all at a work station and retrieved a toolbox from beneath the desk.

His hands worked to bring his newly minted designs to reality, while his mind buzzed with a hundred other thoughts. In one track he went on modifying his spy cam design, while in another he replayed the encounter with Sean. Multiple tracks made predictions about what Sean and Maggie were currently doing and what they were likely to do in the near future. And of course all his regular mental tasks. The side projects, the tidying up of unwanted tracks, the close observation and control over his essential bodily functions.

"What?" Richie asked. Troy and Victoria had approached in such a way that indicated they wished to interact with him.

"You okay?" Troy asked. "We, uh... We saw the news."

"Minor bruises and mild insomnia," Richie informed him. "Otherwise fine."

"How are Static and his dad doing?" Victoria asked. "Shelly Sandoval said-"

"Ms. Sandoval's reports are by and large accurate, if inflammatory. I haven't seen Static or Mr. Hawkins since yesterday, so am unable to update you with information beyond what you must have already heard on channel three."

He tested the completed camera and began work on a second.

"Gear," Troy said, reaching for the soldering iron in Richie's hand. "You're acting-"

Richie cut him off, blocking Troy's attempt to remove the tool with a sharp movement of his off hand.

"You're acting weird," Troy said again, trying to place a hand on Richie's shoulder this time. Richie spun to block the potential assault and caught sight of Troy and Victoria's faces. They were afraid, worried.

 _Why?_ Because he was not behaving in the manner they expected from him. They expected him to exhibit neurotypical human emotion, which he wasn't at the moment because such emotions were prohibitory to efficiency. However, their worry and subsequent intervention were also inefficient and counterproductive. In order to placate them, he would need to either fabricate false emotional responses or let his own true emotions be expressed. The latter was simpler to do. Richie deleted the emotion disabling track.

Richie swore as it hit him like a wall of bricks. He pulled the helmet off so he wouldn't get the insides all snotty. It dropped to the floor with a thud and a moment later found himself sitting next to it.

"What?" Victoria was asking. "What is it?" She knelt next to him, hand on his arm as the sobs made it impossible for him to get any words out. Troy vanished and reappeared a minute later with a roll of toilet paper.

Richie mopped his stupid leaking face and struggled to get himself under control again, normally this time.

The problem with normal was that it took a long time. The three of them had relocated to the lunch table, projects long since abandoned by the time he was ready.

"I told my dad," Richie said between hiccups. "He kicked me out."

The two techs responded like he'd guessed they would. Troy in disbelief, Victoria with sympathy.

"Seriously?"

"I'm so sorry, Richard."

Both of them insisted, begged for him to let them help, but Richie couldn't do it. Yeah, they'd worked with him for the past couple months, but he didn't hardly know either of them. He wasn't even sure Troy and Victoria were their real names, and they only knew him as Richard because that's what they'd heard on the news. They'd never even seen his face until now.

After a while Richie extricated himself from their sympathies, saying that he had a relative he was gonna go stay with. He kicked off from the parking lot and flew around aimlessly for a little while, trying to think of someone he felt comfortable turning to. The only name that came to mind belonged to a man currently in the hospital, fighting for his life. And after his little outburst in Virgil's hospital room, he wasn't sure he wanted to see his friend right now either. No, he couldn't impose himself on the Hawkins right now. They didn't deserve that.

Who else? Mike and Karen Spaulding? He knew them really well, but it was only secondhand. It would be awkward if he let it slip what had happened between him and their daughter.

Mr. Decker? The technology teacher was nice, but Richie couldn't help but feel he'd be crossing a boundary if he went there. He didn't know Mr Decker outside school. Heck, he wasn't even sure what his first name was.

Alva? He would put Richie up in a hotel, no strings attached, but the problem with hotels was that they were full of strangers. People who could recognize his face from TV and call in the media faster than you could say channel three exclusive.

In the end Richie ended up flying to the superstore on the edge of town and buying himself some camping equipment. He'd always known he'd wind up using the abandoned gas station like this.

 **17.2 Celebrities**

"Is it just me, or is everybody looking at us?" I whispered to Richie as we stopped for him to get his books before class.

"Yup," Richie said, not looking up from his locker. We'd made up since the fight in the hospital, but I didn't think Richie had totally forgiven me yet, being way quieter than normal, more solemn.

"I thought the teachers told everybody to leave us alone," I said, well aware that I sounded whiny. "They said they were gonna have that big assembly and everything..."

"V, they _are_ leaving us alone. No one's asked for autographs or attacked us or anything."

I looked back at the watchers. No one was blatantly staring, but there were an awful lot of shifty-eyed glances. A kind of bubble had formed around us too, as people gave us a wide berth like we were toxic or something. I caught that one kid with the locker next to Richie's tie and re-tie his shoes three times, like he was trying to look busy while he waited for me and Richie to leave so he could get to his books.

"Are they worried I'm gonna shock them?" I asked as we made our way to homeroom. The bubble went with us.

"Maybe?" Richie said with a shrug. "Or that they're gonna turn into bang babies if they get too close."

"People think that?" It made no sense whatsoever if you stopped to think about it for two seconds. If that were true, the whole school would be big bang-ified by now.

"Oh yeah. Ever since Sandoval did that spot on secondhand smoke mutations."

"When was-?" I started to ask as I opened the door to the homeroom classroom, but was interrupted by a wall of noise. I jumped back, the lights flickering uncontrollably, but Richie grabbed me by the shoulder before I could totally freak out.

They were applauding.

My heart hammered in my chest and I felt blood rush to my face, embarrassed because I'd freaked out and because everybody was clapping for us. Static might have had some clever one-liner ready, but Virgil Hawkins wasn't ready for this.

The teacher stood up and told the class to quiet down, but motioned for me and Richie to stay near the front of the room.

"Richie, Virgil, I want you both to know that your teachers and classmates are here for you, however we can help. You've both been exceptionally brave."

I looked at Richie, not sure how to react. If this had been after Ebon's first attack, I woulda been totally down for the accolades, but right now I felt like a failure.

Richie pushed up his glasses and looked at our friends and classmates with the glazed stare that meant he was using his power.

"Thanks, guys," he said, sounding totally comfortable addressing the whole class like this. "But there's loads of other people who've been way braver than us, and me and V are pretty shook up. We'd appreciate some normalcy, if we can get it."

I nodded for emphasis and followed Richie to our seats. Everybody was watching us, but once the teacher called for attention the pressure from all those eyes faded and I relaxed. Normalcy. I couldn't have said it better myself.

After school I was going to have to deal with all kinds of bang baby absurdity, but for now, I could pretend that nothing had ever happened, that I was a regular kid taking regular classes.

 **17.3 Leads**

After his first day back at school, Richie ran a few errands before heading to work. He pulled out some cash and checked on his account at the DPCU ATM, bought some more camping stuff from the local sporting goods store, ate a burrito from Tony's Taco Truck, and made a layover at the GoodFit Athletic Club.

The club was part of the same business park as Alva Industries and probably one of the nicest ones in town. It had everything the Rec Center had, but nicer, newer and more. Saunas in the locker rooms, an Olympic-sized pool, masseuses on staff, and all kinds of fitness classes. Richie wasn't really interested in any of that stuff though.

"Can I help you?" the woman at the front desk asked.

Richie smiled at her. "Yeah. Can I get a membership?"

The woman had him fill out some paperwork and before long he was shunted to an office where a man too perfect to be handsome explained all the amazing perks of being a gym member. Eventually Mr. Perfect looked at the paperwork Richie had filled out and his too-white smile faded, turned into a curious frown.

"Richard Foley? You're not the kid from the news? Static's sidekick?"

Richie contained his irritation at being called a sidekick. Sandoval had called him that _one time_ and somehow it had stuck. "Yeah, close enough."

Mr. Perfect looked at the paperwork again. "You're fifteen," he said like he didn't really believe it.

"Yeah," Richie said, cutting in before Mr. Perfect could explain why that was a problem. "Look, I know you can't sell memberships to minors, but I wanted to get a family membership as like a present for my mom. It's gonna be under my dad's name, but he's super busy so he can't come in. You can call him if you want. I just thought I'd pick up the paperwork and stuff now so I can take it home and have him sign it."

Mr. Perfect pursed his lips, like he was wondering how legit Richie was. He wasn't inclined to believe him, but according to the homework Richie had done earlier, Mr. Perfect was paid mainly on commission. If he wanted to buy groceries or whatever, he had to sell gym memberships. And here was Richard Foley, wanting to buy the most expensive package offered.

Self interest quickly overcame any qualms Mr. Perfect might have had, and after a brief phone conversation with some voice recognition/text-to-speech software slapped together during lunch, Richie had his membership on track.

Richie thanked Mr. Perfect, promising to return tomorrow with all the checks and signatures, and walked down the street to the lab. Being homeless sucked, but at least tomorrow he was going to take a shower and wash his hair someplace where no one knew him, even if it did mean a little fraud and forgery.

###

At the lab, Richie said hi to Houston and Santiago, glad that Troy and Victoria weren't there. He'd asked them to keep his getting kicked out a secret, but he wasn't one hundred percent sure he could trust them and the whole situation was awkward.

"How's Backpack coming?" Houston asked.

Richie groaned. "Tedious," he said, pulling up a chair at one of the computers. "I don't know why I didn't save all that work."

Houston commiserated, telling a story about how he'd learned that lesson after getting a box of floppies stolen out of his car. "Almost a whole month of work on my dissertation, gone. Professor Thomas wasn't to happy with me, I tell you what."

Richie carried on chatting with Houston while his fingers typed away, bringing Backpack's brain back into existence. Houston and the rest of the techs were long since used to his multitasking skills.

His work was interrupted a little while later however when Santiago brought him a couple of guests. Richie looked up in surprise to see Francis and Maria looking awkwardly at the lab. Maria was inscrutable as always, but Francis looked uncomfortable, suspicious.

"Heya, Francis. Maria," Richie said, typing in one more command and saving his work. He took them both over to an empty table. "Thanks for doing this."

Francis scowled and Richie was reminded just how volatile the guy could be. He was going to have to tread carefully, be polite.

Francis spoke. "Your buddy Hawkins said you could help."

Richie nodded. "I hope so. I mean, I think I can, I just need more information." Right on cue, the printer next to the break area pinged, letting him know his print job was done. Richie excused himself, went and collected the stacks of papers.

"What's this?" Maria asked.

"Some questionnaires. I'm trying to get a better understanding of how powers work and figure out what your exposure level might have been. I'm hoping I'll be able to tailor an anti-mutagen once I know how you were affected and why."

Francis just stared at him, not looking at the questions yet. "How long's it gonna take you to make the stuff?"

Richie looked back at him, trying to hide how intimidated he was. "I don't know. That's why I need your help. The more information I have, the faster I can get this done."

Francis nodded in approval. "Whatcha think, babe?" he asked Maria.

"It's good. The questions are good and I think he can do it."

Richie smiled, glad to have Maria's approval, but at the same time weighed down by her faith in him. Another part of his brain made a note that she hadn't actually turned her head or moved her eyes to see the questions he had printed out, yet it sounded like she had read them anyway. Did she have powers beyond hydrokinesis, then?

He pushed the thought aside, to be dealt with after he'd had them both fill out the questionnaires. He got them a couple of pens and went back to his computer, waiting for them to finish.

About twenty minutes later, Francis called him back over.

"Is that it?" he asked.

Richie pushed up his glasses. "Not quite." He created a memory recording track and took a breath, well aware this was going to be a painful topic. "Do you mind if I ask some more personal questions?"

Francis scowled again, and Richie swore the air temperature rose a couple degrees.

"It's about your exposure. How'd you end up there?"

"Why?" Francis asked.

Richie adjusted his glasses again, feeling sweaty and uncomfortable. "I wanna create a model of what happened. Maybe there were environmental factors that changed how the gas effected you. Effected us."

Francis swore, calling him nosy, but Maria told him to be quiet.

"Environmental," she repeated. "That means like maybe the gas changed if it got mixed with other things," she explained to her boyfriend. "Like if you breathe smoke and gas, it's different than if you breathe air and gas, or vapor and gas."

Richie nodded."Exactly." She was simplifying it almost to the point of being incorrect, but at least she was putting it in a way Francis would understand.

"Paco was on the boat," she said. "But I can tell you what happened inside. Then you tell me if it's environmental, like you said."

Richie blinked, nodded, reminded himself to breathe as Maria told him her story.

"You see, the Kids, they like to hire outside people. Is very hard to join them. They are very... secretive. They don't like their people to get hurt, don't like the police to learn who they are. So they hire Paco to drive the boat and they hire me and the girls to get inside, but it's their own guys who have the guns and knives to keep us 'safe.'" She made quotes in the air with her fingers.

"Now, I don't know what they thought was inside. I guess more guns or something. So me and the girls, we break in, and then there's all this shooting and noise, but the men from the Kids, they say, 'keep going, we have to get the goods.'

"Inside, it's all mountains, walls of these wood boxes, full of garbage. The men from the Kids say, 'let's look somewhere else,' but I think, no, the walls is hiding a room. So I tell them, and one man takes a... a little truck to move the boxes while Marta and Teresa go look for more hiding places.

"He moves the boxes, and inside is this... thing." She motioned with her hands to describe something tall and narrow. "Is like a glass with a metal top and bottom, connected to a big computer from like the sixties or something. There was two of them, and a big stand with metal jars in it, like the ones that hold the... _butano?"_

"Butane?" Richie guessed.

Maria shrugged. "Sure. So anyway, the man with the little truck calls his boss, and the boss says, 'turn on the machine.' He does, and _buf._ It explodes. Then I think the jars fell down and broke, and then gas came out, and then more explosions."

Richie closed his mouth, realizing it was open in awe. "You were _there_? At the epicenter?"

"At the center, yeah. Paco told me after the explosions, he decides screw this, and drives the boat away. You know, you are very, very lucky all those guys are dead," she said to Francis. "They would have killed you for running away."

Francis snorted. "I coulda taken them."

"Wow, Maria, that's..." Richie shook his head, at a loss for words. In a way she'd been lucky too, but at the same time, very, very unfortunate. "Wow. Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah," she said, but she didn't sound very comfortable.

Richie rubbed at his greasy scalp and tried to pick the best question. Why had the Kids hired her, and Francis for that matter? Had Maria been some kind of thief? Who were Marta and Teresa?

"You don't know the name of the boss, do you?" he asked.

Maria didn't answer right away. "I think they called him Hoffman."

Francis sat up straight in his chair. "What? You said you didn't know anything."

Richie tensed, feeling the air getting hot around them, for real this time.

" _Ya lo s_ _é, cariño_ ," Maria said, her voice soft. " _Yo no_... I didn't want you to get hurt. I-"

Francis got to his feet, pacing, swearing and emanating smoke. "You _knew_? You knew someone who might actually know something, and you tell _him?_ " He waved at Richie, who felt a ray of heat move through him.

Houston and Santiago had stopped their work to eavesdrop a while ago and were now making speedy exits to grab the fire extinguisher and the security guard.

"Outside!" Richie shouted over Francis's tirade, getting to his feet himself. "Fire alarms, go outside!"

Francis grabbed him by the collar, fingers burning the fabric. He swore at Richie. "Who're you telling me what to do? She's my girl, she's supposed to trust me, not you!"

Maria stepped between them, wrapped one watery hand around Francis's fist. "I don't care if he gets hurt. But I care if you do. Please, Paco, it's not worth it."

Richie's shirt tore and he fell out of Francis's grip, while the older kid stood there, unmoving. Maria caressed his hair, smoke and steam rising up.

Eventually Francis let his fists fall to his sides. Without a word, he stalked out of the lab, trailing smoke behind him.

Richie gasped as the smoke swirled, pulled itself into a sphere in the middle of the room.

"So the alarm won't go," Maria said.

Richie nodded. Her power was _so_ much more than hydrokinesis. "Thanks." He shook his head to clear it, tugged at the charred hole in his shirt. "You, uh... you don't know anything else about Hoffman, do you?"

Maria shook her head. "No. I ask Francis's contact, Jackson, but he says Hoffman left town. I dunno if that's his real name or where he went, so..." She shrugged. "It's a dead end. But you're smart. Maybe it'll help."

Richie fixed his glasses. "Right."

"Oh, and I need to tell you. The fake police."

"What?"

"They caught Francis, locked him somewhere near of the highway just after the big bang. Maybe they know something." She shrugged. "I dunno. I think he was high, so maybe he made it up and it was just the regular cops." After that, Maria told him how to get in touch with Jackson if he wanted, then ran after Francis, taking the bubble of smoke with her.

Richie let himself fall back down into his chair, feeling drained. He almost wished Maria hadn't given him the leads. He didn't want to chase down gangsters and he had no clue what to think about the "fake police." On top of that, Virgil was probably gathering even more leads this very moment.

"You okay?" Houston asked, fire extinguisher in hand.

Richie rubbed his face in his hands. "Yeah." Life had been so much simpler back when it was just random stupid gangsters wrecking up the place.

 **17.4 Community Outreach**

Sharon dropped me off at Dr. Lobner's office after my first day back at school.

"I'm glad you're doing this, Virgil," she said as I got out of the car. "It'll be good for you."

I smiled and said, "I hope so," kind of offended that she thought I might need help dealing with bang baby stuff. I'd already come to terms with having superpowers without a shrink's help. The doc _was_ gonna help me get through the stuff I kinda did need help with—the stuff with Pops and Ebon—but that wasn't what today's session was about.

"See you at five." Sharon gave me a little hug and got back in the car.

I hitched up my backpack and pushed through to Dr Lobner's office. Besides the little reception room and the break area where we had talked last time, the doc had a couple different meeting rooms where her and her staff met with patients, including the big one where the receptionist sent me.

A dozen or so padded folding chairs were arranged in a loose circle in the middle of the room. There were a couple potted plants by the door and a table with donuts and coffee next to the big windows that looked down on the street. I kinda wanted a donut, but I didn't want the doctor to think of me as having poor impulse control, so I sat down next to the one familiar face I recognized.

"William, right?"

The freckled bang baby pursed his lips and nodded. "Static. Nice to see you." He didn't sound that happy, but I tried to smile and be nice.

"Just Virgil is fine. Or V."

"Virgil," the bang baby repeated, and proceeded to gaze off into space until the start of the meeting. I tried my best not to stare at the other attendees, which included a huge, three-fingered purple monster and some kind of half-dog, half-man creature.

Dr Lobner came in after a minute and all the quiet side conversations stopped. She sat the last empty chair and smiled at the group, then at me. "Virgil, have you introduced yourself yet?"

I shook my head.

"Would you? And tell us all why you're here?"

"Right." I felt kinda shaky, being called on to speak publicly like this without my goggles to hide behind. But I wasn't taken totally by surprise, and I knew pretty much what I had to say.

"Hey." I waved at the group. "I'm Virgil Hawkins, or Static, if you wanna call me that. I think Dr Lobner said last time I was gonna sit in today." I looked at Dr Lobner, wondering if I should tell them about the stuff Richie and me were working on now, or if I should wait until the end.

Dr Lobner smiled and nodded, which I took to mean I'd talked enough for now. Like a teacher sitting on a pile of graded tests, I didn't want to disrupt the class with potentially controversial information.

"And, um, I want to talk to you about some stuff at the end." I slumped back in my chair and sat quietly as Dr Lobner went around the group, eliciting highs and lows of the week and giving feedback and support.

The purple monster talked about how he had reinforced his kitchen chairs, the dog-man showed us his progress with ASL, and a girl with smoke dribbling out her nose and ears told us about a date she'd gone on over the weekend. Those were the high points.

The low points, by the time I'd listened to all of them, seemed to have one of two themes—awkward interactions with regular people, or accidentally causing harm with their powers. The latter category I could relate to in a big way. I was always giving people little zaps without meaning to, and sooner or later I _was_ going to hurt someone. But it was the former that really made me cringe. It hadn't been something I'd experienced myself until these last couple days at school. It felt... crummy.

After everyone talked about their goals for the next week, Dr Lobner called me forward again, waving me up to stand in front of the group.

I explained what me and Richie were doing, how that, even if they didn't know anything about where the gas might have come from, they should still stop by and answer the questionnaires Richie had made, just so we could get a better understanding of how powers worked and how they might be better controlled, or even used.

Even if they didn't look all that hopeful, almost everyone took a business card with our address at the Alva labs and the new email Houston had set up for us.

The group mingled for a while after I gave out the cards and I was left alone, eating a donut, not sure what else to do with myself but stare awkwardly out the window and worry this was all pointless and I wasn't going to be able to fix anything ever.

Dr Lobner made small talk with me for a couple minutes, and then Sharon pulled up on the street below, giving me the chance to escape politely.

"How'd it go?" Sharon asked as I slammed the door behind me.

"Public speaking sucks," I said, for the sake of having something to say. Sharon laughed and messed up my hair, swerving dangerously down the street.

Really I was kinda disappointed at the reaction I'd gotten, but I guessed it made sense. They didn't have any reason to think Richie, who was just some high school kid, would be able to help them any more than a legit therapist with a doctorate. And most of these people were ex-gangsters. Not exactly the trusting type, probably seeing the doc 'cause their parole officers made them.

 **17.5 Lakeside Gazette**

Frieda waited nervously outside Virgil's house. She'd never been so anxious in her life. It was so weird to think that Virgil had been Static this whole time, like he wasn't the person she had thought he was. It was like he was a stranger all of a sudden. Of course it was painfully obvious now. She should have realized it immediately when Static had stopped Slipstream during their field trip to the museum all those weeks ago.

A beige sedan rolled into the driveway and Virgil and his sister got out of the car.

"Frieda?" Virgil asked. "What are you doing here?"

Out of habit, Frieda almost shot back _well, that's a nice way to greet a friend_ , but the words dried up in her mouth. Instead she said, "Hi, Virgil," in a quiet, almost shy voice. "You didn't sit with us at lunch, and..." she took a deep breath. "And I had some questions for you."

Virgil's face went stony and his sister folded her arms across her chest, looking mean.

"Really?" he asked after a long moment.

"It's for the Lakeside Gazette," Frieda explained. She'd gotten tons of extra credit for her interview with Francis, so one with Virgil, a bona fide superhero, was sure to help her grade even more.

"Seriously?" Virgil said. He looked angry, and Frieda couldn't guess why.

"Well, yeah. You're interesting. People will wanna-"

"No," Virgil said, interrupting her. "I'm not doing an interview." He pushed past her, going up the stairs to his house.

"Why not?" Frieda asked him, her voice shrill.

"I don't wanna!" Virgil shouted, not looking at her as he dug out his house key.

Frieda stomped up the steps after him. "I thought we were friends!"

Virgil rounded on her and Frieda felt the hairs on her arms stand on end. She shivered.

"Friends don't _interview_ each other. Friends take a vested interest in each other's lives because they care about each other. Not 'cause Mrs Hampton will give them extra credit in journalism class!" He turned away from her again, the front door to his house flying open of its own accord. Virgil stomped inside and the door slammed itself shut.

Frieda stared at it, mouth open. She _did_ care. She just had so many questions, and so what if she got extra credit for asking them?

Virgil's sister came and stood next to her, looking down at Frieda with arms still crossed. "You're gonna apologize to him tomorrow at school, you hear?"

Frieda nodded, still not quite sure where she'd gone wrong.

Frieda went home, dejected, and decided to call her new best friend, Daisy.

"I tried to talk with Virgil," she said once she was safely ensconced in her room, the curly phone cord tangled around her fingers.

"What happened?" Daisy asked with baited breath. She'd wanted to talk with Virgil too, but she didn't have the guts, instead convincing Frieda to do it.

"He yelled at me and his sister told me I have to apologize tomorrow at school."

"What? How come?"

Frieda sighed and told Daisy word-for-word what had happened as best as she could remember.

"Yeah, you should apologize," Daisy said. "V shouldn't have blown up like that, but think about how he feels. Some scary stuff happened to him, and he probably doesn't want to talk about it yet. Instead he just wants everything to be normal so he can forget about it. Only everyone at school has been super weird, or he _thinks_ everyone at school is _gonna_ be weird if he tries to interact with them. Which is why him and Richie didn't eat lunch with us."

"So what, should we wait a while, and pretend nothing happened?" Frieda didn't know if she could restrain her curiosity like that.

"Maybe not pretend nothing happened, but at least like not talk about it yet. If you're super nice to him now, he'll probably be happy to talk later."

Frieda groaned. "Daisy, why are you so smart?"

On the other end of the line, Daisy laughed and they started talking about other things.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Well, that took more out of me than I expected. Lots to squeeze in! Richie gets in a fight and does social science, Virgil helps do social science and gets in a fight... That whole Exposition-by-Maria bit probably could have been its own scene (or maybe two scenes?) but this chapter's already long enough as it is. Lazy storytelling FTW!

Bilingual bonus: _ya lo sé, cariño = I know, honey_


	18. From the Ether

**18 From the Ether**

A man known as Hoffman reads the newspaper outside a chain coffee shop in Milwaukee. It looks like the craziness in Dakota is still going on, with Ebon escaping prison and kidnapping folks. Hoffman takes a drink of his coffee, glad he got out of there when he did and still regretting he'd ever listened to that joker York. Serves him right for listening to one of _them_.

Hoffman folds up the paper and tugs down his sleeve, hiding his tattoos from prying eyes.

 **18.1 Illusions and Revelations**

I met up with Richie at the lab after school on our second day back. Our house was being invaded by contractors, so me and Sharon were staying at a hotel for the next few days. I didn't really want to hang out there, and going to the rec center would have made me think about Pops, so I was stuck with the lab. Richie was pretty busy though, leaving me to entertain myself. So, while he worked out the bugs in Backpack 2.0, I answered the survey he'd made, and compared my answers with Francis's, Maria's and Richie's.

I was surprised to learn that Richie had never really explained to me how exactly his power worked. It was way more complicated than just "being a super-genius," and all of his existential questions suddenly made a whole lot more sense. There was so much going on inside his head, no wonder he felt like he was losing track of himself. Pun intended.

Picking up the next packet in the stack, I made a mental note to do more normal stuff with him.

Francis's power was the most straightforward: he made stuff hot. His issues came from a lack of control. Without a serious effort of will, everything around him would burn to nothing until he fell asleep or someone cooled him down.

The really interesting thing though was on the last page, in the lifestyle/habits section. According to him, there was zero change in his caloric intake, and as an amateur bodybuilder, that was something he kept strict track of. This left me wondering where was the energy coming from. His power wasn't like mine, where it just built up slowly over time, it was more like an unending reservoir, with his will as the dam. All that firepower had to come from somewhere, but it wasn't clear where.

Maria's was by far the most surprising though. It _looked_ like she'd been turned into some kind of water spirit with the power to move water around with her mind, but that wasn't it at all. She had, or rather, _was made of_ pure, grade-A telekenisis. Her watery self was nothing more than a puppet, her real body totally destroyed in the big bang. I'd only ever seen her use her power on water because that was what she used to calm Francis down and to make her puppet.

I gulped and glanced over at Richie, something twisting in my chest. There was no way we'd be able to undo what'd been done to her, even if we did find a cure. She couldn't swallow pills or receive shots or anything.

The thought struck me that we might run into the same problem with Ebon, but I pushed it aside.

"Hey, Richie," I shouted across the room. "You wanna do some science this weekend?" It was nice being able to use our real names and not wear our costumes in the lab. A small silver lining for having our identities were revealed.

Richie sniffed and pushed up his glasses, looking up from his robot in progress. "What do you think I am, some kind of nerd?" he said in a nasally voice.

I rolled my eyes. "I wanna see how much energy I'm putting out versus taking in. You got an idea how we could do that?"

"A couple ideas." He closed the lid on the robot and came over to look at the surveys with me. "You caught on to the root of the problem then?"

"You mean where the energy is coming from?"

"Bingo. The parameters and mechanisms for how the powers work and the kinds of things the powers do are all different, but the one thing they have in common, at least from what we know so far, is that there's no discernible source for all that energy.

"Take Maria for example." He slid her survey out of the pile. "She's reducing the entropy of one system without increasing it elsewhere."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, entropy," Richie said, scratching his head. "How everything evens out and decays over time. Like if you take two boxes with different kinds of gas in them and connect them with a hose, eventually they're gonna mix so both boxes are the same. It used to be organized, but now the system is more decayed. You would have to expend energy to separate the gasses again. Energy means heat, and heat means entropy."

"Oh. So you mean like when she did that trick with moving all the fog. She was violating the laws of physics." I'd known already that telekinesis went against physics, but I'd only really thought of it in terms of defying gravity.

"Right. And that either means there's something I'm missing, or she's been turned into some kind of time-reversed being. Which I don't think she is, because that would make her Merlin."

"What?" Usually I could keep up with Richie's monologues, but then he would throw out some reference that left me in the dust. What did Arthurian legends have to do with Maria's violation of entropy?

"Because Merlin lived his life backwards. More entropy equals more time, so if you go against entropy, you go against time. Merlin went backwards through time, which meant he had memories of the future and wasn't so great at normal human interaction. Maria doesn't have any precognitive abilities, and seems pretty socially with it, despite everything that's happened to her."

"Uh-huh," I said, wondering now if Merlin had been a real person. I'd always assumed not, but if he'd been a metahuman...

"It doesn't really matter anyway," Richie said, shrugging. "Time reversed matter is anti-matter, which would explode the instant it comes into contact with regular matter."

I thought back to the big bang. "There were lots of explosions that night."

"Yeah, but an explosion like that probably would have blown up the whole state."

I frowned, trying to figure it out. We were already looking through the weird back alleys of theoretical physics to explain how powers worked, and it was still only the first week. In reality, none of our powers should have worked, not even Richie's. The true power of our powers was the part where they allowed us to violate the laws of physics, and how could you explain something that violated a law when the only tools you had _were_ the laws?

I didn't relish the thought of having to invent a whole new branch of physics just to explain powers.

"Hey, guys?" It was Madison, one of the lab techs. Lost in thought, I hadn't noticed her approach.

"Yeah?" Richie glanced at her, pushed up his glasses.

"A couple of bang babies here for you." A youngish guy and a little girl stood behind the tech, looking like they felt out of place. The guy I recognized from the support group, but the girl was new to me. I squinted, trying to remember his name.

"Byron, right?"

He gave me a small, surprised smile and held out his hand for me and Richie to shake. I'd gathered from the group meeting that he had some kind of sound blast power, not too different from Talon's, only his mutation wasn't immediately obvious unless you had electro-sense. He had a metal disk growing out of his chest, hidden under his baggy sweatshirt.

I didn't know anything about the girl, but from her appearance, I guessed she was maybe ten or eleven years old. She had big, half dazed eyes and wild curly hair pulled into braids that were the definition of cute.

"This is my sister, Miranda." Byron put a hand on the girl's shoulder, nudging her forward to shake hands with Richie and me.

She glanced at me, then at Richie, then looked down at the ground, taking a half step back. "'Lo."

It made me feel bad, how scared she seemed, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she was afraid of. The lab? Me and Richie? Maybe she was just one of those super shy kids. I put my hands on my knees and leaned over so we were at eye level. "Hi, Miranda. It's nice to meet you." We shook hands and I stood up straight and looked at Byron. "Thanks for coming down. The more data we can gather, the more likely it is Rich'll be able to figure out a cure."

Byron glanced at Richie, who looked like he wanted to object to being given all the credit, even if he deserved it. "I—We—don't care about a cure. We wanted to talk about where the gas came from."

Richie's eyebrows shot up, hidden under a shaggy blonde mess. Then he frowned, for just a split second before his face returned to neutral again. I doubt Byron noticed. "The gas? We've got maybe one real lead, but whoever was behind it covered up their tracks pretty good."

Byron leaned against the desk and folded his arms, clearly waiting for more.

Richie continued. "All the records of who owned the Pier Fourteen warehouse were destroyed and anyone who might have known something—zoning officials, the port authority, whatever—are either gone, dead or weirdly uninformed. I talked with the cops yesterday after Maria and Francis stopped by," he added before I could ask how he knew this.

"You guys know anything?" I asked.

Byron looked at his sister, who had moved to put Byron between herself and Richie. I wondered if she was scared of white people in general or if there was something about Richie in particular she didn't like.

"Randy? Can you show them?"

The girl shook her head, pigtails swinging. "He's not here right now. But he'll come if I do it."

I blinked. Doing _"it"_ had to mean using her power, but what was her power? How had she gotten exposed to the gas? Who was _he_?

"Go on," Byron prompted and the girl bit her lip in concentration, her eyes glowing white-pink. A similar aura appeared around the three of us, me, Richie and Byron. And then a strange sphere appeared in the middle of our circle, kind of like a scene from one of the shows at the planetarium. A black field, full of sparkling stars and glowing planets. A space station floated in the middle of the hologram, a hub of intergalactic travel. Beads of light zipped from point to point along silvery threads, reminding me of those canisters and pneumatic tubes you sometimes saw at bank drive-thrus.

She had to have some kind of illusion power.

I tore my gaze away from the awesome sight and caught Richie with his mouth open in amazement.

"No way," he whispered, and then grinned. "But what if I..." He squinched his eyes and the image changed. One of the sparks bloomed, filling the space with light, then condensed and turned into a copy of Backpack 2.0, which scuttled around on the floor, metal legs clinking against the linoleum. "That's so cool. So it's not traditional telepathy, but more just picking up on ambient subconscious mental imaging, which you can project audio-visually."

"I guess," Miranda whispered. "But you're really noisy."

"Oh! Sorry." Richie's eyes slid out of focus and the space scene returned, only to grow dim as the beads of light winked out and the planets went dark.

"Was that you turning it off?" I asked in a low voice. Richie had made clear in his survey that his power was "hard to turn off."

"Yeah, a little." He pushed up his glasses as the globe of stars expanded slowly around us. "Miranda, who was this _he_ you wanted to show us?"

"The floating man, EJ. He's a bang baby and he shows up sometimes to talk with me."

 _That's creepy_ , I thought, but didn't actually say it aloud, saving my judgment for after having met the guy.

"What does EJ stand for?" Richie asked.

Miranda shrugged, the stars and darkness closing in around her, obscuring everything. My heart hammered for a second, reminded of Inky's smoke, and the scene changed, becoming a diorama of a street at night, a freckled teenage girl in the back of a police car, being dragged away by a figure made of shadows, and a little version of me in my Static costume, reaching out with a handful of sparks. The scene wavered in slow motion, moving but never progressing.

"He doesn't want to see that, Randy." Byron's voice cut through the scene.

The Ebon in miniature vanished and was replaced with a NASCAR style racetrack and speeding cars, complete with engine revving sound effects.

I blinked and turned to Byron for an explanation. "This is neat, but what does it have to do with the gas?"

"There's this spirit guy that floats around who's attracted to Randy's power," Byron said, watching the illusory cars. "Not like, _romantically_ attracted, but like magnetic attracted." He shrugged. "I guess he's a bang baby, but it didn't happen to him during the big bang. Like, it was some kind of work accident? He's been kinda vague about it."

A shiver ran down my spine. If Byron was telling the truth, this was exactly the kind of person we wanted to meet. One of the guys who had actually _made_ the gas. Questions boiled in the back of my mind. Why did they do it? Was giving people powers the ultimate goal of the gas-makers? Or had it been a surprising side-effect of an untested chemical?

I was more inclined to believe the latter, that some company or individual had created the gas, found out what it did and then promptly freaked out and did their best to seal it away from the public without drawing too much attention.

While I thought about this, the projected scene changed again, zooming in on one of the racecars. A white man got out and leaned against the roof of the car.

"Hey, kiddo," the man in the projection said, looking up at Miranda. "Where are we?" He looked around. "And who's your friends?"

"EJ, this is Virgil and Rich. We're in their lab," Miranda said, not phased at all by the fact that she was talking with a three-foot tall holographic man she herself had summoned from the ether.

EJ's holograph frowned, then pointed at me and Richie in turn. "Static. Robo-boy." He gestured to the room in general. "Alva Industries stage one robotics lab. Dang, kid. What are you doing hanging out here?"

My mouth twisted, like I'd tasted something unexpectedly bitter. There was something about this EJ character I didn't like. He seemed sleazy. He even had the look of a used car salesman to him—a little overweight in a suit that didn't fit right, thinning hair and an overly familiar demeanor.

"Gear," Richie corrected, his tone polite. "Miranda says you know something about where the big bang gas came from?"

EJ snorted. "Seriously? The gas? I'm surprised no one has figured it out so far. It's stupidly obvious once you stop and think for two seconds."

I frowned. "Can you enlighten us then?" I asked, not trying to hide the dislike in my voice.

A devious smirk spread across his face. "What's in it for me?"

My mouth fell open. "You want money?" Why would a ghosty spirit guy try to extort us? Unless it was a habit ingrained from his pre-exposure days. No wonder the big bang had happened if a bunch of sleazeballs like him had made the gas. I could totally see this guy cutting corners on safety and security.

"V, chill out."

Everybody was looking at me. Or maybe more precisely, the sparks that had started to flicker between my fingers.

I reigned it in, took a deep breath. "I'm going outside," I informed them, and walked out.

It was sunny and warm outside and I drained my batteries into a patch of dirt next to the parking lot. It felt good, getting rid of that excess tension, but being charged up couldn't explain the whole outburst. Was it being forced to relive my first encounter with Ebon? Or was that EJ guy just that sleazy and off-putting?

It was probably the former, so I decided the guy deserved the benefit of a doubt.

I jogged back inside, hoping I hadn't taken myself too much out of the loop.

"—given enough time and resources, yeah, I think I can," Richie was saying, presumably talking about how he thought he could reverse the effects of the big bang gas.

"And the old man's funding this?" EJ asked. "I know he had deep pockets, but this... I doubt he's getting much of a return from you boys yet." He nodded at me and I was surprised to notice that he was full-size and much less transparent than before. The pinkish glow around Miranda's eyes had condensed as well, like maybe she was really in the groove of her power now.

"I've been selling him some patent ideas," Richie said, like it was no big deal. "But yeah. You tell us what you know and where your body is and we'll do what we can."

EJ snapped his fingers and gave Richie the ol' point-wink-and-smile. "You got it." He glanced over his shoulder at Miranda. "Hey, kid. How much time we got left?"

"We're good," she said in a distant, not entirely paying attention kind of voice.

"Then let me ask you boys a few pointed questions. Why here? Why would someone store the gas here in Dakota and not some bunker buried a thousand feet under the Alaskan tundra?"

"Because they didn't know the danger?" I suggested.

EJ shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Money. It always comes back to money. A warehouse in Dakota is cheaper than a bunker in Alaska. Cheaper than a warehouse in NYC or Metropolis too. Dakota is the perfect city. Just big enough to have all the necessary infrastructure, but still small enough and out of the way enough to be cheap. And if you're looking to hide some things under the rug, well, the cops are _awfully_ busy fighting the gangs. No one's going to notice a little white collar crime if you're careful."

I'd never heard anyone describe Dakota as perfect before, but I wasn't flattered.

"Now, what entity—what person, company or organization—has enough cash for extensive R and D, but not enough for Alaskan bunkers?"

This one left me stumped, but Richie of course had an answer.

"Off the top of my head, a hundred or so that I know of that could possibly have an interest in making the gas."

"And ties to Dakota?"

Richie's face went blank and what little color he had drained out of it. "Oh! Oh." He pushed up his glasses. "Hey, Miranda, you mind if we step outside for a bit? There's some stuff I need to test with Backpack..."

That awkward transition gave me clue enough to guess what Richie was thinking, though I didn't want to think it myself. And frankly, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Alva Industries made robots. They were a mechanical engineering company, not some shady chemicals manufacturer. In all the research I'd done into the company before signing the contract, I'd found nothing to indicate or even hint at Alva being involved in the big bang.

Yes, Alva Industries was a big tech company and the CEO had a penchant for throwing money around in oddball ways, but there had to be more likely candidates within the city. I was pretty sure Sharon had mentioned some kind of plastics developer working with students from the community college. That seemed like a closer fit than a robotics company.

We stood on the edge of the parking lot, EJ looking more transparent again in the sunlight. Miranda leaned on her brother's arm, her half-closed eyes still glowing.

"Backpack, secure perimeter," Richie said and the robot on his back beeped in response. Richie pushed up his glasses again and faced EJ's projection.

"Mind if I play Sherlock Holmes for a minute?"

EJ folded his arms. "Go for it, kid."

Richie smirked, took a deep breath. "EJ is short for Edwin Alva Junior—you're the right age to be the son of Melissa Sather and Edwin Alva—and you probably work for Alva Senior, which is why you recognized the lab." Richie gestured at the building behind us.

"It was only pretty recently that you discovered the gas, because it doesn't seem like Miranda and Byron know you that well, so you must have got exposed after the big bang. This means it's not likely you were a test subject or something, 'cause I doubt the gas makers would keep experimenting on people after the explosion.

"So, you illicitly found out about the gas and then exposed yourself. Unintentionally, because you'd already seen the fallout of the big bang. No, you wanted to blackmail the company, which is why you asked Miranda to bring you to us and not to the cops. Only you didn't know that me and Virgil are on the Alva payroll, which is why you've been beating around the bush with us."

EJ tugged at his collar, distinctly uncomfortable. "I..." he grumbled.

Richie smiled. "Don't worry! Why do you think I had us come outside? No spybots out here. At least none that Backpack can't deal with." He reached over his shoulder and rapped the robot with his knuckles. "Now, why don't you fill in the rest of the gaps?"

I listened quietly as EJ told us everything he knew. The tricky business with the money, the secret bunker full of gas underneath the robotics lab, the use of human guinea pigs...

I felt betrayed, yet unsurprised. Of _course_ it was Alva. Of _course_ him and his company were too good to be true. That the philanthropy, the betterment of the city and society in general were all just a cover for something needlessly sinister. EJ didn't know why his dad had done what he'd done, and wasn't too interested in it either. It was easy to see where his morals came from.

"You don't know anything about a man called Hoffman, do you?" Richie asked.

EJ shook his head. "Who's he?"

"Gangster with the Kids. I think he was the one who organized the raid on the pier."

EJ tapped his fingers together thoughtfully in a way that put me in mind of many an evil genius. All he needed was a white cat.

"I don't know anything about the pier. I figure it was another storage facility, where they held the gas before trucking it down to the lab for experiments. But if you're looking for _people_ , look over there." He nodded at the gleaming ALVA sign across the way. "Someone in the know leaked. I'd look it up myself, but..." He swiped his hand through Miranda's body.

Richie nodded and said he would, but there was a greenish cast to his pale face.

Miranda ran out of juice eventually and we had to say goodbye to EJ, though not before he extracted a promise from Richie that he would find the cure. Richie had both Miranda and her brother fill out the powers survey and I went for a fly to clear my head and come to grips with the news.

Just when I was about ready to head back to the hotel Richie messaged me over the shockvox. I met him at the abandoned gas station.

"We gotta talk about this, V," Richie said as I landed behind the gas station with a thump.

"I know." I'd given the whole situation some thought on my flight. We had to go public, the question was how and when. Should we call up Shelly Sandoval and hold a press conference? Go to the mayor and inform her in private? Would it be better to do it now, or wait until we had more concrete information? Did we want to involve the cops before breaking into the gas making facility or after?

I took off my goggles and did a quick scan of the gas station and surrounding area with my electro-sense. We were alone. Richie led the way inside and I flicked on the lights and the radio so it wouldn't be so dark and ominous. It seemed like there was more stuff in the station than last time I had been there.

Richie leaned against the doorway, arms folded. "What do you think? Do we go to the cops or do we tell Alva?"

I opened my mouth in surprise as something uncomfortable twisted in my stomach. By now I should have been used to Richie thinking of things I hadn't considered. But telling Alva...

"Isn't that kinda... hypocritical of you?" I didn't want to say something so harsh to his face like that, but it he _was_ being hypocritical. "After you haranguing me for not going to the cops with Ebon?"

Richie's face twisted like he'd bitten into a lemon peel, but then he composed himself again, looked kind of sheepish. "Yeah, I know. But this is different. No one's lives are in immediate danger and just think of the potential good we could do."

I thought for a second and then the weight of what he was proposing hit me. I sat down on the couch and put a hand to my head. "Dang."

The potential good: With samples of the gas, the data from past experiments and help from the gas makers themselves, it would only be a matter of time before Richie could figure out a cure. Weeks maybe, or even days. But more than that, he might even be able to figure out how to design a version of the gas that only gave people non-mutated, useful and controllable powers—no more Talons or Hotstreaks.

The preexisting evil: Alva and the gas makers had already done some pretty horrifying things for which they needed to stand trial. If we went through with Richie's idea, we would be complicit in that.

We might be able to get our hands on some of the data if we went to the police, but that seemed unlikely, since it would count as evidence.

"I guess we should, I dunno, make a pros and cons list," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. Last time I'd made a list it hadn't really helped me make the right decision, but at least it had helped me do _something_ and not just stand there and freak out.

Richie nodded and I got out some pens and a notebook, started writing down our options.

Go to the police with EJ's information

Steal gas data (and gas sample?), then go to the police

Confront Alva Sr—work together to make cure

I drew a line between the first option and the second two, since it was the only one that wasn't morally gray. The second option was the lighter gray: we wouldn't be working with Alva, and we would be making sure he got put behind bars, but we would also be breaking and entering, and then lying to the police. The third option would probably get us the best results in terms of getting access to the gas makers' work, but it would also make us complicit in Alva's criminal activities.

"I'm not comfortable with number three," I said, putting a box around that option.

Richie nodded. "Right. Let's focus on one and two."

I glanced at him. That was not what I expected him to say. I had expected him to commiserate, to agree wholeheartedly that the third option was unrealistic, unthinkable, that we had only included it to be thorough.

"For number two," Richie said, ignoring or not noticing my worry, "we'd have to do a bunch of reconnaissance. Find out where exactly the data and the samples are kept, what the security is and how we can bypass it. Between the two of us, I think we could do it, especially if we got EJ or Maria to help out. But it would take a lot of time. The longer we sit on this information, the more culpable we are. And if we're gonna be culpable, we might as well go whole hog and choose option three."

"And we'd be breaking and entering," I added.

"Right." Richie sighed. "I think we have to go with option one. We have a reputation to uphold. What would your dad say if he found out we did two or three? Or the media?"

Pops would be furious of course. Furious and ashamed. The media would be ecstatic.

I must have pulled a face, because Richie said, "Okay number one it is."

It worried me though that public opinion seemed to be the deciding factor in Richie's decision making, rather than intrinsic morals or something.

That said, it wasn't like I hadn't considered two and three myself. They were doable. I did feel relieved however once Richie had officially taken two and three off the table.

"The next thing we need to think about is Francis and Maria," Richie said, flipping to a new page where he doodled a caricature of the couple—a beefy Francis with flames for hair and a wobbly Maria in a dress that turned into waves at the bottom. Fun, lighthearted drawings that kinda went against the seriousness of the situation.

"This is exactly what they've been looking for this whole time," Richie said as he drew. "They deserve to be kept in the loop."

"Yeah, but Francis isn't exactly stable," I said. "What if he tries to, I dunno, assassinate Alva or something?"

"He wouldn't do that," Richie said, but he didn't sound very sure about it.

 **18.2 Still at it**

Fade had asked himself after the failed kidnapping whether or not he should stick with Ebon. The man was insane, reckless and had zero consideration for people other than himself.

But then again, Fade didn't care too much about the general populace either. They were dull and mundane and would never fully accept him as one of their own. Ebon accepted him, even if he wouldn't count Fade as an equal. But above all else, Ebon was entertaining. There was no predicting what crazy scheme the Master of Darkness would come up with next.

So, Fade found himself following Static and Gear around for a few days and learned some pretty interesting things. The location of their Alva-sponsored lab, their mission to "cure" the rest of the bang babies, and the presence of Alva's hand in the original event.

Fade was surprised to hear that Alva might have been the one to develop the big bang gas and wasn't as convinced as the two boys and their informants seemed to be. Did they know something Fade didn't? He decided to stick around and wait before delivering these theories to Ebon, knowing that his boss would get a little testy if Fade gave him faulty information.

He was glad he waited, because later in the afternoon Gear held a meeting at his gas station hideout with Static and a couple of people Fade knew only in passing—a boy with fire powers called Francis and a pool of water come to life called Maria.

Apparently, Gear had surreptitiously recorded the conversation with their informants—the little girl and her ghosty friend—and he played the video now for his two guests.

"It all fits," Gear said once the video came to an end. "Virgil did a scan and there's definitely something underneath the labs, and the location fits with your kidnapping, Francis. The one thing we don't have is a motive. It's a multi-million dollar project and we still don't know what the original purpose of the gas might have been. Why would Alva sink all that money into it without a real good reason?"

"And it probably wasn't to build his own army of superheroes," Static added, "since you're way more likely to be killed by the gas than get super powers."

"Prob'ly a weapon," Francis said. It was clear he wasn't much of a talker.

Gear pushed up his glasses. "Yeah, but if you wanna make poison gas, there's way less expensive and dangerous ways of doing it."

Francis shrugged, apparently unconcerned by the practicalities of gas production. "So what? It's still prob'ly a weapon. What're you gonna do about it? You want me to help blow them up?"

"We're taking this to the police," Static said. Fade rolled his eyes. Could this kid get any more self-righteous?

Francis snorted and Maria gave him a pitying look. "I don't know what you think the police can do," she said. "They are all... how do you say... dancing to his music."

That wiped the smug look of Static's face. "What makes you say that?"

"Do you know how much money, how much technology he donated them? The flying cameras, the tasers, lots of computer stuff, I imagine."

"Shoot." Static looked at his partner. "Richie, what do you think? How likely is it the police are corrupt?"

The blonde boy stared off into space for a second. "Very likely." He frowned. "We might have to re-think our options."

Static shook his head. "There's other people we can go to besides the police."

"Yeah, but the FBI might not be able to react fast enough."

"Since when did this become time-sensitive?" Static grumbled.

"It's not _now_ , but once we take this to the authorities, we can only assume it's a matter of time before Alva catches wind," Gear said, a little bit of derision slipping into his voice. "We don't know what he knows or what his sources are, but he _does_ have a whole factory dedicated to making spy-bots."

The four of them argued for a long while, debating whether or not it was best to investigate the police or just assume they were corrupt, and trying to dissuade Francis from leaving right now to blow up the labs.

Eventually Static had to leave and the rest of them agreed to meet again later that evening to finish deciding what to do. If he'd had anyone to bet against, Fade would have wagered real money on Gear sneaking off to spy on the police during the break.

Fade caught a lift back to the Alva lab from an unsuspecting driver and swam down to the basement levels of the complex. It was just like the informant had said—cement and steel cells holding some very unfortunate failed experiments and the materials to keep making more monstrosities like them.

Smiling to himself, Fade walked back to the abandoned subway, genuinely excited to see what Ebon would do with this information.

 **18.3 Conflicted**

I joined Sharon in the hotel restaurant. Since I had the money, we'd given up on trying to cook for ourselves.

"You okay, Virg?" Sharon asked as I sat down.

I groaned, not sure what to say. My brain hurt from the discussion with Richie and the steamy couple. You know, 'cause fire and water makes steam.

"C'mon, V. What's up?" Sharon prompted. "Are the kids at school being weird still?

I shook my head. If only that was my biggest problem right now. "Well, yeah, they are, but that's, like, normal, you know?"

"Did you apologize to Frieda for blowing up?"

"Yeah." It had been awkward, but the fact that Frieda had apologized as well for being inconsiderate really helped.

"Good. The rest of them'll get over it too," Sharon said, and tried explaining acclimatization, which was what she was learning about in her psychology class right now.

I wasn't really listening, lost in my own thoughts, and after a couple seconds Sharon caught on and went quiet, staring at me.

"You ever feel like you don't know what you should do?" To my embarrassment, my voice cracked.

Sharon smiled, a sad kind of smile. "All the time. That's a pretty grown up way to feel."

"Really? 'Cause Pops always seems like he knows what to do."

"Really. He's just had more practice at faking it. What's the problem? Maybe I can pretend I know what to do."

A couple weeks ago, I never in a million years would have told Sharon about my problems, but now I actually wanted to. The issue was that I was getting paranoid. I knew the gas station was a safe place to talk, 'cause Richie had put in a bunch of security systems, but Sharon and me were in a public place with all kinds of people who might be listening in or spying on us. Even if it wasn't Alva's cronies, I was still a celebrity. People were going to eavesdrop if they could. And while I honestly did want to know what Sharon thought about the whole Alva situation, what if someone overheard? Or what if she let something slip later?

Fortunately the waiter came over to take our orders and gave me a couple seconds to think about what I wanted to tell Sharon.

I decided to go with vague hypotheticals. And spaghetti and meatballs.

"It's like this," I said once the waiter was out of earshot. "How bad is it to want to do something bad in order to achieve something good? And then what if the guys you thought were the good guys might not be so good?"

"And the bad guys?" Sharon asked, half hiding a smile.

"Not as bad as I thought." Francis was still a jerk, but he wasn't evil.

"Nobody's the villain of their own story," Sharon said. "And nobody wants to admit they've done something bad. I don't know what you're thinking about doing, but if you really wanna think of things in terms of good guys and bad guys, you gotta ask yourself if you're gonna be the villain in somebody else's story."

"Wow. That actually sounded smart."

Sharon stuck out her tongue at me. "It's not like I'm going to school to be a counselor or anything. But really, you should tell me what's going on. You're getting this habit of keeping secrets and it's not doing you any good."

I winced. "I'll talk to Dr. Lobner 'bout it."

Sharon gave me a look. "Good. And remember. No more vigilante stuff."

My stomach twisted. God, she was worse than Pops with the guilt trips. But in a way it was good though—another reason _not_ to break in or confront Alva, but instead go straight to the authorities.

"Yeah, alright."

We made small talk for a while, waiting for our food to come. Sharon didn't broach the subject again, but I was glad we had talked. More ready to argue my case with Richie and the others after dinner. We were gonna go to the FBI, Alva was gonna go to prison and Richie and the techs would _eventually_ find a cure.

 **18.4 Last Chance**

Ebon smiled at his disciple. Here was his sign, his chance, his opportunity for true greatness. This was what he'd been chosen for. Everything that had come before was only trial runs.

"Let's see what Alva has been up to."

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Blech. EJ chapters are the worst. But at least now everybody knows who was behind the gas. Everybody. :/

Next chapter: What _has_ Alva been up to?


	19. Alva Interludes

**19 Alva Interludes**

 **1971**

The man sitting across from Edwin Alva looked pleased. He had on a seafoam green button-up, a broad checkered tie and plastic framed glasses that covered half his face. A shiny GM pin held his tie in place.

"So you see," Edwin explained, "the aluminum _could_ hold up to the five MPH law they've been pushing up on Cap Hill, and in the long run it would save the company tens, no, hundreds of thousands. I bet it'd even work on the luxury models, as long as we get the look right. I hope you don't mind, but I have some design ideas drawn up."

Edwin pulled his hand-drawn designs from his briefcase and laid them on his interviewer's desk.

"Speaking of luxury models, I noticed there was something of a noise issue in the Vega. I think if we changed the exhaust system just a little..."

The interviewer nodded for a moment, then spun in his chair and opened up a filing cabinet behind the desk.

"Do you drink, Alva?"

"Occasionally," Edwin said, his already pounding heart going into overdrive.

The interviewer plunked a bottle of scotch and two glasses on the desk, poured them each a generous shot.

"To our newest designer." He raised his glass and Edwin copied him, willing himself not to laugh or cry or even cough as the scotch burned his throat.

A few increasingly tipsy minutes later, Edwin found himself being herded out of the office, told to come back on Monday when the boss's assistant Melissa Sather would show him the ropes.

 **1974**

"You may kiss the bride."

Edwin lifted up Melissa's veil and pulled her in close as she hiccuped and tears ran down her chin, a few stray blonde hairs sticking to her damp face. She was far from the prettiest he'd seen her, but that's why they had taken photos earlier in the day. He kissed her, feeling the bulge of her stomach press against his hands.

 **1975**

Edwin stomped up the stairs to his Detroit home, shaking the snow off his shoes. Why couldn't Cole just listen to him? He'd been right about the cooling problem in the 2300, but the project manager was blocking his efforts to fix it out of pure spite.

He shook his head. Melissa got moody when he vented his work problems to her, but who else was he supposed to vent to, goddamnit? A wife was supposed to support her husband, not berate him.

Inside he could hear Edwin Jr screaming. The deal had been that if it was a girl, Melissa would get to choose the name, but if it was a boy, it was up to Edwin. For whatever reason, he'd assumed it would be a girl and hadn't given it much thought. So, for lack of anything better, he'd named the baby after himself. Hopefully it would inspire the boy to be like his father.

Edwin let himself in, braced to trade one set of headaches for another.

 **1977**

"I quit."

Cole had driven his design team into the ground and their model was being discontinued. Edwin could have stayed with the company, joined a new project, but the rest of them were just like Cole. Small minded, egotistical and dumb. Edwin couldn't see the company lasting too much longer without some massive change from the top.

They tried to get him to stay of course—he was the best designer they had—but Edwin would rather strike out on his own than deal with the bastards in Motor City any longer. He was taking his wife and son and leaving town, going back to Minnesota. Not the twin cities, they were too expensive, but a mid-size town down south. Dakota.

He had it all worked out. The loans were in place, the office space leased, the first employees ready to start working. All he needed to do now was cut ties with GM and drag his followers across state lines.

If only Melissa could hold up her end of the plan and get the damn house sold already.

 **1980**

Edwin set down the phone, wondering if this was what it was like to have a heart attack. His secretary Olivia MacNamara looked at him anxiously, like she might faint herself.

"What? What did he say?"

"We got the contract."

Olivia squealed, hugged him, her firm breasts pressing against his chest. Edwin squeezed her back, allowed himself to smile, then let go.

"This deserves a celebration. Come on." Edwin put on his coat and helped Olivia into hers and drove them both to one of Dakota's few nice downtown bars. He bought a round for the house and listened to Olivia giggle and extol his genius, chattering about all the things the company would need to do to fulfill the contract.

A few hours later Edwin drove her home, gave her a kiss goodnight and went to tell Melissa and little EJ about how Daddy was going to make them rich. He wouldn't be able to tell them why however. The General had been very explicit about the need for secrecy. It wouldn't do to let the Russians know what they were up to.

####

Edwin walked down the row of finished dummies. It had taken weeks to get the designs up to military spec, but now that they were finished, they were perfect. Made of plastic, rubber and aluminum, they were structurally as close to being human as an inanimate object could be, with the added benefit of being rigged up with pressure sensors that could be connected to a computer. The dummies could suffer trauma that would kill a real person, and then "live" to tell researchers where they'd gotten hurt and how badly.

Alva Testing Industries was already selling them to Chrysler and Ford for crash testing, but now they were about to be used for something more exotic. Teleportation.

Edwin didn't know the theory behind the technology, but he gathered it was something pilfered from one alien race or another. The US military was trying to play catch up with civilizations that had thousands of years' head start and it only felt natural that the would come to him for help, even if it was only in a minor, unnoteworthy way. At least he'd been given the rights to oversee the proper use of his dummies. He would be flying out next week.

####

The teleportation lab was buried in a bunker deep beneath the Alaskan permafrost in a geologically stable area. From above, Edwin never would have guessed there was anything there, but once the helicopter landed and he was ushered into a camouflaged hut he realized the facility was huge. The vast majority of it he would never get to see for security reasons, and he spent his time between the barracks, the caf and the teleportation lab.

The lab contained only three main pieces of equipment. Two six-by-three foot glass cylinders, capped top and bottom with platinum and rare materials and one supercomputer that was connected to both the cylinders. One of Edwin's dummies sat inside the nearest cylinder, propped up against the glass.

A handful of technicians and soldiers, plus Edwin, Olivia and the General stood next to the supercomputer, shielded from the cylinders with a lead-lined plexiglass wall. They all wore protective masks and clothing, though by this point Edwin felt it was hardly necessary.

They were two weeks into the project and still had no noticeable results. The General was only here today because he was getting fed up with the lack of progress.

"Give it more juice!" the General ordered.

The head technician saluted, made some adjustments on the supercomputer and ran through the safety check sequence. Once everyone present had checked their equipment and the seals on the cylinders were confirmed to be closed, the tech gave a countdown.

"Zeta wave harmonization test number 204, frequency e to the power of ten minus 1.8776 at two thousand volts, go." He tapped a key on the computer and a moment later there was a tearing noise like a giant piece of velcro being pulled apart and the lights went out.

The General swore so badly Edwin would have thought he was an Admiral and then the lights came back on.

"Holy mother of God," someone whispered. Beside him, Olivia put a hand to her masked mouth, looking out through the plexiglass shield.

The dummy was gone, disintegrated. Sparks flashed inside both the chambers, lighting up the dark purple-gray gas that swirled inside the glass. Shadows flickered around the bottom of the far cylinder. Edwin watched as they took shape and solidified into something humanoid, slumped against the wall. After a few minutes the gas had disappeared and the dummy was back, apparently unharmed.

In the stunned silence, the computer creaked, printing out page after page of data. Then one of the soldiers whooped. For a moment it was a madhouse behind the plexiglass, soldiers and technicians cheering, slapping each other on the back, practically jumping for joy.

Olivia though had the presence of mind to collect the dummy. She trotted out from behind the barrier, high heels clicking against the cement floor. Edwin watched as she grabbed the release lever, then let out a barking cough and collapse to the ground.

"Olivia!" Edwin shoved a soldier out of his way and rushed to aid his secretary. He knelt beside her, put an ear to her chest. She wasn't breathing. Edwin ripped off her mask and then his own, the air heavy with the smell of burnt plastic and singed flesh. Edwin took a breath and blew air into her lungs, once, twice, three times. Then he pounded on her chest, willing her to breathe on her own.

One of the soldiers came running, a gray box with a red cross in his hand. Edwin was shoved out of the way as the soldier hooked her up to the defibrillator and gave her a shock. Olivia jumped and took a gasping breath. Edwin felt his shoulders sag in relief and he allowed himself to be led away to the medical unit.

####

Despite being given a clean bill of health, Edwin felt like shit. Nothing but headaches and fatigue for the whole week. He had sent Olivia home to get some rest, and had taken the rest of his time in the Alaskan bunker to train a couple of the technicians in how to access the data from his dummies upload it into the supercomputer. Then, after an arduous twenty-four hour journey, he was home again in Dakota.

EJ and Melissa greeted him with hugs and kisses, which Edwin did his best to reciprocate. He called up his CFO Greg to let him know he was taking a couple of sick days, and went to get a good night's sleep in his own bed.

The next morning he felt significantly better. Still not great, but better. He got up early and went downstairs to see Melissa making pancakes and bacon while EJ watched Sesame Street with his mouth open, elbows on the kitchen table.

"Feeling better?" Melissa asked as he made himself a cup of coffee.

"Much." He reached over and closed EJ's mouth for him. His son looked over at him and smiled. Upon meeting his son's eyes, something _shifted_ in Edwin's head. Suddenly he was in two places at once, the world like a double-exposed photo. His mind's eye played out a scene that felt so utterly real it was hard to tell whether he was in his kitchen or somewhere else.

He saw his son's classroom, all the kids sitting in their chairs, the teacher up at the front.

"Who can name an animal that starts with D?" The teacher asked.

EJ's hand shot into the air and the teacher picked him.

"Dog!" EJ shouted and she smiled at him.

"That's right!" she said, and put a star next to his name on a chart at the front of the room. Edwin could feel EJ's pride as though it was his own.

Then the vision ended and Edwin was looking only at his kitchen again. What had happened? Was it real? Had he seen the future, or maybe the past?

He blinked, glanced at Melissa and his son. They hadn't noticed anything. He cleared his throat. "Hey, Eddy. What's a word that starts with the letter D?"

EJ tore his gaze away from the TV and frowned, thinking about it.

"Duh, duh..." Edwin prompted.

EJ repeated the sound. "Duh, D. Duh..."

"Dog?" Edwin suggested. "Does dog start with D?"

EJ tried out the word. "Dog. Yeah!"

"What about D-d-daddy?" Melissa said, and soon the two of them were naming all the D-words they could think of.

Only one word came to Edwin's mind though. Damn. Where had that come from?

####

The rest of the day Edwin experimented with his new ability on his son. It didn't take him long to figure out the subtleties of his visions. As far as he could tell, he wasn't seeing the future per se, but rather something that _could_ happen, always something the subject of his vision was proud of, or at least had strong feelings about. He couldn't see his own potential future, only the potentials of people who met his eyes. But once contact was made, he could _dig_ , shaping the what ifs and possibilities he saw.

 _What if I made you take violin?_ Edwin thought as he built a Lincoln log house with his boy. His vision showed him a scene in which a slightly older EJ scraped out three blind mice in front of a crowd of parents and fellow music students. Pushing harder, he saw a teenaged EJ sawing his way though a Bach minuet, proud of himself for remembering all the notes. Edwin was no musician himself, but even he could tell there was no talent in those pudgy fingers.

 _What if you did sports?_

A handful of short-lived visions flickered before his mind's eye. EJ bunting a baseball and trotting to first base. EJ taking a breather, hands braced on knees as his coach yelled at him to get back on the field. EJ getting his teeth smashed out with a hockey puck, glad he didn't have to play the rest of the match.

Edwin shook his head, silently stacking another log.

####

Edwin stared open-mouthed at Olivia. Possibilities poured out of her like a flood. _So much potential_. It was mesmerizing. He saw her working with her hands on machines, giving talks at universities, drinking champagne with his CFO and being congratulated for earning the company millions, if not billions of dollars.

"What?" she asked him, going red. He liked that about her. Her innocence, her honest beauty.

 _What if I kissed you?_ Edwin thought, and the resulting vision made his cheeks burn as well. He coughed, blinked and banished the vision.

"I think I've been underestimating you." He leaned in, pulled her close.

 **1983**

Edwin returned home from his first international deal, his pockets full of Deutsche Marks and his briefcase full of orders for his first commercially available robot. The seeker-stopper. It was one of Olivia's designs. Like he had insight over people's potential, she had the power to intuit problems with machines. Just like with his, her power had only manifested a few weeks after the incident with the bunker in Alaska. Neither of them knew yet what had happened or why it had given them powers, but by God, he was thankful that it had.

Between her mechanical innovations and his intuitions about people, they would be able to solve anything, given enough time and resources. Both of which at the moment were in abundance.

The resource of people, especially. Edwin was amazed at the potential some people possessed, even without having powers like his and Olivia's. All too often he would see some kid on the street and catch a glimpse of some great, shining future, available only if he asked _what if he had the chance?_ The chance to go to school, the chance to get a job, to avoid the gangs, to get out of poverty.

By the same token, another kid, seemingly identical in every way, might have the bleakest of futures, his proudest moment being shoplifting from a pawn shop and scoring with a girl in the same day, despite all the help in the world.

This was what Edwin was thinking about when he opened the door to his home to find Melissa waiting for him, red-faced and angry, a manila envelope in her trembling hands.

"You cheat!" she screamed. "How could you?"

Out of instinct, Edwin probed her possible futures. _What if I deny it?_ Divorce, with Melissa vindictively proud. _What if I own up?_ Same result. _If I apologize?_ Again the same. It took a lot of searching to find a future where they didn't split up, and it wasn't a happy one.

"Aren't you even going to defend yourself?" Melissa screamed at his silence.

Edwin broke eye contact. "No. If you have the papers already I'll sign them."

Melissa fell to her knees, weeping, and Edwin wondered what would have happened if they'd never gotten married. She'd loved him and gotten pregnant, so he'd done it for her sake and to save face, but compared to Olivia, she was... boring. No great ambition, nothing in her future to be truly proud of. Her greatest accomplishment was EJ, and the boy himself was something of a failure.

She was beautiful, he supposed, but even her blonde curls were dull compared to Olivia's dark locks and hungry eyes.

 **1985**

Edwin ducked and ran for cover as a streak of red and blue crashed into one of Metropolis's skyscrapers. A giant mechanical bear plodded down the street after it, crushing cars and people.

 _This is absurd_ , Edwin thought as Superman extracted himself from the damaged building and zoomed after the villain, setting things on fire with his laser vision.

He'd always felt that way, but seeing this wanton destruction first hand... It simply wasn't fair. What right did these superheroes, these _metahumans_ have to destroy property and ruin lives? None whatsoever. With _his_ power, Edwin had done nothing but build and improve. He was a real hero.

 **1993**

"You _are_ going, and you _will_ study accounting," Edwin roared. "And I won't pay for one dime of your car until you can tell me the difference between C++ and HTML."

EJ raged and lamented against him, but Edwin held firm. This was the only way his son was going to amount to _anything_ and he would rather have EJ dislike him than do nothing with his life.

 **1996**

"I've done it," Olivia breathed, holding out the designs. Edwin looked into her eyes, gauging the future. She really had done it. She'd re-created the army's botched teleportation device, intuited what it really did, how it really worked and how best they could use it. It was only a matter of time before she had it perfected. Edwin laughed, kissed her.

####

Black clouds rose up from the city in flames. How had things gotten so out of hand? Had he really been so wrapped up in his work that he'd missed seeing the city fall to pieces? Worse than that, Olivia was gone. Edwin had been angry at first, but now he was just... empty.

"Thank you for meeting with me," Taggarty said.

Edwin blinked. "Tell me what I can do to help," he said and the recently elected mayor told him about her plan to blanket the city in surveillance.

Edwin nodded along, peering into her future. _What if I told you?_ he thought, recklessly. To his surprise, the vision was a strong one, powerfully positive. He saw her protecting him from the media and the law, giving him a real chance to experiment with the gas and perfect Olivia's final designs.

Edwin pushed with his power, digging for the right words that would ensure this future. A future where powers were held in the hands of those who would use them to build, not destroy. A world where they were so commonplace that the people would wake up and remember that no one should be allowed a free pass on murder and destruction like the kings of old.

He found the right words and used them.

"I'll do what I can," Taggarty said, deadly serious.

 **1998**

Edwin stepped off the stage as the crowd cheered him, a medal pinned to his breast. He'd spoken the truth when he'd said that building bionic limbs was the least he could do for the soldiers returned from Kosovo.

They were the last of Olivia's designs however, and God knew when he'd be able to replicate something on her level. Now he was the company's only advantage.

He returned from DC to find his newest "risky" hire James York waiting for him with a disturbed and impatient look. A black man with a criminal record, York was first on the list of people not to hire. But he knew how to get things done, quickly, quietly and without complaint.

"Taggarty brought us another one over the weekend," York said after Edwin had secured the office.

"The results?"

A muscle twitched in York's cheek. "He survived." He handed Edwin a folder full of glossy color photos showing a green monster in the vague shape of a man. It was their first survivor, but it was not a success.

Edwin closed the folder. "Find out what went wrong."

York nodded, but looking in his eyes, Edwin could see that true success was a long time coming. They were missing something.

 **2001**

"Goddamnit!" Edwin grabbed a paperweight off his desk and hurled it against the floor. Another complete failure. Of the fifty or so missing persons Taggarty had been able to siphon to him in the last five years, only twelve so far had survived, and all of those with horrifying, debilitating mutations.

"We need more subjects," York said. "Ones without so many health problems." Most of their subjects were homeless people, usually with both mental and physical disabilities. Edwin checked each one before sending them to receive treatment and none of them had bright futures.

Edwin swore at him. "And how the Hell are we going to get them?"

"Gangs."

####

The phone in Edwin's study rang, late at night. It was an emergency. York had found him his subjects, but somehow the word of riches to be had at Pier Fourteen had spread too far and now the gas production facility was destroyed.

Edwin raged for a minute, wanting to fire York, to test their remaining stockpiles on him. But no. He needed York to help him clean up this mess.

####

Edwin invited the costumed kid to sit across from him, a hundred-page contract on the end table between them. The light from the window backlit the kid's blue goggles just enough for Edwin to see his eyes.

A vision of a young black kid in the hospital. He'd saved the city from a creature of darkness, but he was dying, his body mangled beyond repair.

 _And if I help him?_

The same scene, but the kid was mostly unharmed. Similar visions followed, made possible by the kid's survival.

Edwin dug for the right words, but there was no easy way, no direct way to make Static do what he wanted. It was up to the kid to make his own decision.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

There it is, what Alva's been up to. These "subtle" powers are a ton of fun to write/think about. Next chapter we'll see what Ebon does with his latest intel. See you next year!


	20. Big Break

**20 Big Break**

A shadow stands in the dark hall, smiling. The caged ones will be his true followers.

 **20.1 Duty**

I woke up with a start, the shockvox on my bedside table going nuts, red and yellow lights flashing. Richie and Alva were both trying to contact me, at like two in the morning.

My skin went clammy and cold. Something horrifying was going down, and I did not want to get involved. But I had a contract to fulfill, a city to protect. I checked the transmission frequency and radioed Richie.

He answered immediately. "Static. Meet me at the agsos, ASAP."

"Huh?" I was groggy and it took me way too long to figure out what he meant. It wasn't asgos, but ASGOS. An acronym, short for Abandoned Gas Station Of Solitude. And he'd called me Static, which meant he wanted the hero to show up and not Virgil.

"It's serious, bro. Can't talk now, but I need you." He sounded stressed.

"Dang it." I got changed and locked the hotel door behind me, opting to leave the standard way since the window didn't open wide enough for me to fit through.

I was about to round the corner and head downstairs when Sharon called my name. I turned to see her marching down the hall, barefoot in pajamas, her hotel room door left wide open.

"Virgil, you promised!"

"I know!" I cringed under her angry gaze. "But I have to."

"Why?" She was in tears now, standing just outside arm's reach. "What's so important that you have to risk your life for it?"

"I—" my voice caught. "I don't know. Alva-"

"Screw Alva!" Sharon shouted over me. "We need you more than we need his money."

"But Richie-" I started to say, but Sharon wasn't going to let me get a word in edgewise.

"Is a bad influence. I bet you never would'a started this if it wasn't for him."

I opened my mouth to protest. It never would have crossed my mind to even talk with Alva if Richie hadn't suggested it, but really, it wasn't like _Richie_ had ever coerced me into vigilantism. _I_ thought it was a good idea, probably more than he did. And right now he needed my help and I was gonna help him 'cause that's what friends do.

Sharon spoke again before I could think what to say. "I knew it. Look, Virgil. Whatever it is, _it's not your responsibility_."

But it kinda was. I'd made it my responsibility.

"Sharon, I gotta. I promise I'll be safe."

Sharon swore at me, full on crying now, but my shockvox was buzzing and I had to find out what was happening. I couldn't _not_ get involved.

Instead of taking the stairs, I blasted open the emergency exit and flew off on my newest plate, this one a disk that folded up into a pie wedge and fit in my coat pocket.

I landed behind the gas station a few minutes later, Richie waiting for me by the back door, fully geared up as well.

"What's up?" I asked, folding up the disk as I walked over.

Richie didn't answer, his helmet display lighting up instead. _NOT HERE._ The display vanished and he took off in a burst of flame. I followed as best I could, breathing heavy when we landed on top of an apartment building ten blocks away.

"C'mon, Richie," I said, pulling off my goggles. "I can't take all this secrecy stuff."

"I think we're being bugged," he said, voice deep and distorted through the helmet's speakers.

I ran my fingers through my hair, as if that would stimulate my brain, make me wake up more and think faster. "What?"

"We found out about Alva and the gas _today,_ and who just so happens to need us for security _tonight?"_ he thrust the blinking shockvox at my face, still showing red for Alva.

"Okay. So?"

"So?" Richie repeated, his helmet display showing an angry face. "So, Alva must know that we know!"

Something in my stomach twisted and I wished I'd stayed in bed. "How can you be sure? What about all your security measures?"

"Those were supposed to be proof against spybots and regular people. What if he's got like a psychic or something?"

I shook my head. "If he had a psychic or any other bang babies working for him, why would he hire us? This has to be something else."

Richie's helmet showed a frowny face. "Or not."

"What do you mean?" I managed to keep my voice level, but I was in no mood for this Q&A nonsense.

"What if someone else was spying on us?"

"Who would do that? Who is dumb enough to _want_ to get mixed up in this?"

"I dunno. Ebon?" Richie said, the sarcasm and derision audible even through the voice-changing software.

I swore. Of course it was Ebon. It was _always_ Ebon. I unfolded my disk again, but Richie grabbed my arm.

"Wait." He tapped a button on the side of his helmet and his voice came out normal. "Are you okay?"

I pulled my arm away. "Dude. This isn't the time." We didn't have time to talk about my emotional state right now, not that I really wanted to talk about it at all.

Richie was silent for a moment, his helmet blank. "Right. Sorry. Let's get to Alva and see where we're at. You want me to call Francis and Maria?"

"No, not yet," I said, a little surprised to have Richie flat out ask me what to do. "Maybe if we need something blown up." I got out my shockvox, answered Alva's call.

"What took you so long?" Alva's distant voice sounded thin, strained.

"It's the wee hours of the morning. What's the prob?"

"We've had a break in. How soon can you be at the main office?"

"Ten minutes. Me and Gear both." I put away the shockvox, stepped off of the rooftop and sped towards the lab, Richie right behind.

 **20.2 The Path to Godhood**

It was so typical of humans to hide something like this. They only saw the risks, never the potential. Given the chance to become gods, they turned in fear and ran.

Fortunately, as a god himself, Ebon could set them on the right path. The gas would decide who was worthy and who was not, who would be allowed to live and who would be granted true power. Of course none of them would be as worthy as he was, and once all the humans' fearful influence was destroyed, the remainder could finally appreciate him for what he was—a king among gods.

Right now, below the ground, machines hummed at the hands of frightened humans, while their betters, previously caged, stood protecting the path towards the glorious future.

Meanwhile the police dithered and made empty threats, pretending they had any real say in the matter even while they knew deep in their hearts they did not.

Ebon approached one of the freed gods, a man with metal limbs like vines sprouting from his back. Ebon had named him Chainlink.

"I have a task for you."

Chainlink squinted into the darkness. "What?"

"You are going to be my angel." A portal opened at the man's feet, growing bigger and bigger, the biggest and longest portal Ebon had ever done. It strained him, but he didn't let that show. Almost the entire parking lot was consumed by the vortex before the object on the other side could be shunted through.

Chainlink took a step back, eyes wide in surprise. "I don't know how to drive that."

"You don't have to." Ebon had already made arrangements for a driver—the man was safe and sound in his own home, shackled to the radiator. It would be Chainlink's job to ensure that when the time came, the driver did his job and that the cargo got delivered.

Beside Chainlink, a flicker in the air laughed. "Now that's pretty cool."

Ebon nodded at Fade. "Anything to report?"

The near-immaterial man shrugged one shoulder. "Alva's bringing in Static and Gear."

Fade sounded unconcerned, but Ebon had learned not to underestimate the boys.

"Prepare the cargo. I'll see to the villains."

Fade gave him a cheeky salute while Chainlink nodded stoically.

Ebon made himself a portal into a hidden corner of Alva's office and waited while the old man paced around the room.

Down below, on the grassy field that separated the office building from the labs, the police and Alva's security force were building a barricade, defending themselves against icy winds and pools of sizzling acid, not really a threat at the moment. A spark and a low roar heralded the arrival of the true menace.

Alva saw them coming and jogged up to the rooftop to meet his pets. Ebon slithered after, unseen. He settled himself in the shadow of a low wall bordering the edge of the roof as the boys landed.

"What in the world is going on down there?" Static shouted, louder than was necessary.

"They broke into the labs," Alva said, evading the truth. "I need you to take them down. The police are holding them off, but they can't get close enough-"

Ebon struck. Static was first, a portal under his feet sending him into a tract of woods south of the city. He'd find no metal there to help him. Alva followed, his portal leaving him trapped in a locked supply closet two miles away. The old man wasn't really a threat, but he was a nuisance.

Gear was the tricky one. His strength came from the tools Alva had given him. Even if Ebon sent him as far as he possibly could, the helmeted kid would still MacGyver his way out and come flying back, ready to get in the way again. No, getting rid of Gear was a two step process.

Gear reached out for the spot where his friend had been a split second before and Ebon grabbed his hand. He wrapped the boy up in his coils, crushing, breaking. He shouted something, but Ebon was too focused on divesting him of his machines to catch the words. The robot, the boots and the helmet all went flying off the roof, crashing onto the hard ground below.

Ebon opened a new portal and deposited a gearless Gear on a half sunken rowboat in the middle of the lake.

Annoyances dealt with, Ebon returned to the labs to oversee his project.

 **20.3 The Cavalry**

Francis woke up to a buzzing sound. The radio thing Gear had given him yesterday evening was blinking and buzzing on the shelf next to his hookah. Francis groped for it, found it and answered the call with a groan and a curse. Maria stirred in the berth next to him.

"Francis, it's Gear. Listen. We need Hotstreak."

"What?"

"We need you to go blow some stuff up." Without any encouragement, Gear told Francis everything that had just happened to him. Alva's call, Ebon's attack on the the lab where they made the gas and his trickery at banishing his enemies to places where they couldn't reach him.

"He bust out his flunkies from prison?" Francis asked. Ebon hadn't attacked solo.

"No. It's people we've never seen before. A girl with ice powers, a green jello guy that shoots acid, at least three or four others I didn't get a good look at."

"Uh-huh." Francis sat up, turned on the light. "And you want me to go blow them up."

"Yes, exactly."

"Not motor out and save you."

"I'll be fine. It's the city that's in danger."

Francis rubbed at his eyes. Ebon wasn't attacking the city, he was attacking the gas labs. And Gear had made it pretty clear he was the only one who could possibly come up with a cure. Even if Ebon found the gas and then went around infecting people, it wouldn't matter as long as Gear was there to fix it later.

"If you say so," he said into the radio and shut the thing off. "Mar, you awake?"

In answer, Maria pulled herself together, every drop of water held perfectly in place.

"I'ma drive over to Alva's. You wanna pick up that idiot kid before he drowns?"

"I can do that."

Francis kissed her cheek. "Thanks, babe. Meet you at Alva's."

Maria let herself out through the companionway while Francis put on his shoes and heated up a cup of coffee left over from yesterday morning. A couple minutes later he was speeding through downtown Dakota, the thrill of going fast less thrilling without the threat of getting pulled over.

He left the car around the corner in the museum parking lot and walked the rest of the way, turning up the heat.

 **20.4 In the Woods**

"Shoot." I tried the shockvox again. "Shoot, shoot, shoot." The 'vox wasn't working and I was way the heck out in the middle of nowhere woods, no clue where I was relative to the city or anything else. I could feel where north was, but that didn't help much.

I shoved the 'vox back in my pocket and sent up some sparks so I could see the branches before they hit me in the face. Ebon must have 'ported me straight to the one clear spot in the whole woods, because no matter which way I turned, there were branches and roots and thorny vines scratching at me, trying to snag my clothes and tangle up my feet.

This was stupid. Trying to wade through the brambles wasn't going to get me anywhere fast enough to matter. I had to fly if I was going to get back to civilization, but in order to get off the ground I needed the infrastructure civilization provided.

But dang it, this was Minnesota, it wasn't like we were in Montana or Alaska or one of those other wild, unpopulated states. Even if Ebon could send me a hundred miles away, which I didn't think he could, I was still gonna be within walking distance of other people, right? I just had to look for signs for which way to go.

I crouched down, took off one glove and pressed my bare hand to the ground, the better to feel the feedback from my electro-sense.

There was lots of stuff in the ground—worms and bugs and little animals, but no wires, no pipes, nothing manmade within my range, which was about a city block when I focused like this.

"Dang." If there was nothing manmade within a square block, there might not be any people close enough to hear me shout or see any lightning I put up.

But maybe lightning _was_ my best bet. Even if no one saw it, thunder still carried for a long ways, and if I boomed out an S-O-S, someone was sure to come investigate.

No, that was silly and a big waste of my reserves.

So, maybe my power and my gear wasn't going to get me out of here, at least not directly. But I still had my feet and a good sense of direction.

I was wasting juice trying to use sparks to see, so I found a dead branch on the ground and got it burning. It didn't work that great, but it was something. Then with my disk as a shield against branches, I marched through the trees, heading north, since that was as good a direction as any.

It was weird. In a way, I felt kinda relieved Ebon had sent me out here. Like, at least for the moment, I didn't have to worry about protecting the city or bringing Ebon to justice or stupid moral quandaries. It was just me versus the trees, and that was a fight I knew I could win.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Short chapter this time, and kind of a boring one. Action next chapter though, and then it's only a few more chapters until the end


	21. Into the Fray

**_Attn. Violence ahead._**

* * *

 **21 Into the Fray**

Muscle memory takes over as Jan positions himself behind the open cruiser door, gun in his hands, forearms braced on the door frame. On the outside he looks competent and professional, but inside his stomach is churning, his head spewing out pointless thoughts like _this can't be real_ and _I really shoulda read more comics as a kid._

In front of him, a creature of shadow stands with its arms raised, laughing as monsters rise up out of the earth.

 **21.1 Man Overboard Drill**

Maria watched as Francis sped down the street, on his way to save the city.

It was things like this why Maria was in love with him. He was loyal, capable and strong. He knew his own strengths and weaknesses and those of the people around him, even if they didn't know it themselves. Time and again he had pushed her to achieve things she wouldn't have expected of herself and she had become stronger for it. Graduating high school, finding a legit job, coming to terms with her new _modo de ser_. That, and he was nice to look at.

So when he casually asked her to save the life of the boy who would cure the city, she responded in kind, confident she could do it.

Maria spread herself thin across the lake, searching for Gear. It was tough to think or act when she let herself get big and diffuse, but it was quicker than staying condensed and running back and forth across the lake. The smaller, the more confined she made herself, the more her strength grew, but she couldn't see or hear or reach as far.

She found Gear out towards the middle of the lake, maybe a kilometer or so from the marina, trying to scoop water out of a small boat with a crack on one side. He looked cold and tired, like he'd been at this for a while.

Maria pulled herself together, made a vessel out of lake water she could talk to Gear with.

"Let's go to the shore, okay?"

Gear jumped—it was dark and he hadn't seen her. "Maria?"

"Yeah. Hold the boat. I'll pull you."

He grunted and nodded and Maria walked her vessel over to the boat, lifted it up onto her "shoulders". She had to make herself fairly small to be able to lift so much mass, but Gear kept his eyes on the shore and all she had to do was go in a straight line where he was looking.

She took him back to the boat and gave him a towel, turning her "back" while he took off his wet clothes, even though she was sure he knew that what she could see had nothing to do with the direction her vessel was facing.

Gear handed her the wet things and Maria pulled the water out of them and gave them back.

"I didn't know you could do that," Gear said as he put on the dry clothes.

"It's not so hard. The water slides out."

"You're gonna have to tell me more about how your power works," he said, nerdy enthusiasm shining through. Francis thought he was obnoxious, but Maria thought his enthusiasm was sweet, if misplaced.

"Yes, not now. I'm going to make sure Francis is okay. Do you want to come or I can leave you here?"

"I'll come. I dunno if I'll be any help, but I'll come."

Maria smiled and nodded. "That's good. Did you ever see that movie with the boy who finds the _extraterrestre_ and they ride a bike?"

Gear scrunched his eyebrows. "ET?"

"That's how we're going to get there."

A couple minutes later Maria had left her vessel behind and was dragging the neighbor's bicycle down the street, Gear peddling madly. It wasn't quite like the movie because they weren't flying, at least not much, and Gear was quiet, not screaming like he was on a roller coaster.

The two of them screeched to a stop in the parking lot outside the lab. Maria abandoned the bicycle to observe the scene. It was chaos. The police huddled together around their cars and each other, weathering acid and ice and rays of fire, trying to shoot at the bang babies who had them so trapped.

"Can you stop them?" Gear asked, waving at the battle.

Maria pulled some water out of the ground for a vessel. "I can try."

Gear gave her a salute and Maria strode into the fray. The police were trying to hold a line across the parking lot and the grass, preventing the bang babies from leaving the lab building and getting into the offices. Maria couldn't really see the office building from here, or the road—they were too far away—but that didn't matter. She knew where they were and what the police were trying to do: contain the attackers.

Francis had already lured the ice girl off to one side and they were in a contest of who could use their power more. The air had turned to steam around them, the ground to mud.

Maria turned her attention to the big, soft creature that was spewing acid at the police's shields. The thing had once been a man, but now it was a monster, like an amoeba grown gigantic with the thought of becoming human. It had organs and bones and eyes and brains floating inside it like vegetables in a soup.

She closed in on it, tried to lift it up, but it was too heavy. Mouths without teeth opened up along its body, vomiting corrosive stuff at Maria's vessel. She caught it and threw the resulting sphere back at the monster's head.

The thing lunged at her vessel and Maria slid around it. Killing it would be easy. All she had to do was reach inside and pull out something important. Its brain or its heart. But did the thing deserve to die? It was ugly and terrifying and dangerous, but it had to remember what it once had been, had to have some level of reason.

"Stop or I kill you!"

The thing spun to face her vessel, shoulders shaking, mitten hands holding its belly. It was laughing. It pointed one stubby finger at her, then at itself and laughed again.

It did have powers of reason. She almost wished it didn't, so that if she had to kill it, at least she wouldn't feel bad about it.

More acid splashed harmlessly onto her vessel and Maria retaliated, reaching inside the monster and pulling a piece of it out through one of its thousand mouths. Some kind of organ, huge and wet and corrosive, splattered on the ground.

The monster burbled, leaking acid and swinging its fists at her vessel. Maria grabbed a policeman's shield and rammed it lengthwise into the creature's belly. She pulled it out again, the hard clear plastic dripping like honey where the acid ate it.

"Go or I chop you to pieces!"

Despite the pain it must have been in, the monster lunged at her again. Before it had taken so much as a step the policemen fired their guns, bullets exploding like water drops on the monster's back.

The step turned into a fall and the monster burst open on impact. Maria edged away, disgusted. Forgotten, the shield dropped to the ground.

And then another bang baby, this one huge and scaly, bowled through her, colliding with the nearest huddle of police. Maria reformed her vessel and banished any thoughts she might have of remorse or disgust over what had happened to the acid monster. Right now she had to protect the people who were trying to protect the city.

 **21.2 Quick Thinking**

Richie watched as Maria flew into the battle, screaming at the green jello man. She was so seriously OP compared to everyone else he was more worried for Ebon's new recruits than for Francis's girlfriend.

There were some real heavy hitters out there though and Richie's power only left him slightly better equipped than the average fifteen year old. He hopped back on the bike and pedaled away from the battle.

In the little of it he'd seen, it looked more like a distraction, a ploy for time more than anything else. Those guys could have wiped the floor with the police by now if they had wanted, but instead they were playing cat and mouse, only taking it seriously after Francis and Maria had arrived on the scene.

If the attackers were stalling for time, that had to mean Ebon was working on something, presumably something to do with the gas down in the secret lab. That was what Richie had to deal with.

Both the main entrance by the street and the side entrance by the parking lot were blocked off by the fighting, but there were a couple back doors he might be able to slip through. These would be locked on the outside though, so rather than poking around the back of the labs, Richie peddled over to the office building, snagged an elevator and let himself into Alva's office.

He paused for a second, wondering where Ebon had sent Virgil and Alva and if they were okay, then shook his head. Virgil was tough, he'd be fine, and Alva could die in a black hole for all Richie cared about him. He was a reckless jerk, even if he did make some pretty neat stuff.

Richie plopped himself in Alva's sleek white desk chair and booted up the computer. _New track: What kind of password does Alva use on his office desktop? Highest priority_.

While the computer ran through its boot up sequence, Richie dedicated all of his own processing power to figuring out the problem. The newly created track dredged through all of Richie's knowledge, memories and assumptions about Alva, his life and his company.

A couple minutes later the computer rang out a warm, welcoming tone and Richie snapped out of his stupor. He wiped a trickle of blood from under his nose and entered his first guess. He waited with baited breath, and... Hole in one. Colors swirled on the screen and the desktop appeared with an overhead shot of the lake as the background.

Richie sat up straight, put his hands on the home row and dove into the Alva Industries private network. It wasn't long before he had control over all the automated systems in the complex. It was a good thing Alva was so tech savvy and had access to everything because otherwise Richie's job would have been a heck of a lot harder.

A window in the bottom corner of the screen showed the footage from the security cameras around the site, flashing in quick succession. As fast as his fingers would let him, Richie requisitioned Alva's fleet of security drones to get a better view of what was going on below and to search for Ebon and Static. Robots snapped to life at his command, though those were of little use. The ones not rooted in place were mainly butler-bots, fragile things designed to do dishes, organize schedules and take phone messages.

But they could talk.

Richie pulled up a new window and started issuing commands. The half dozen butlers under his control began making phone calls as Richie watched the fight, figuring out the weaknesses of Ebon's new crew. Maria had the green jello man under wraps, and Francis was in deadlock with the ice girl, even if they were doing a lot of collateral damage.

The lumpy guy making the clones was actually hiding behind the entrance to the labs, a decoy clone giving orders and pretending to be the original, drawing fire. Once Richie told the cops where to find the true original, he would be easy to take down.

The speedster with blades growing from his arms had to stop and catch his breath after every dash, if only for a second. After a little observation, Richie would be able to predict when and where he would have to stop.

The weird, weaselly creature had the power to take control of someone else's body after touching them, though it looked like his captives could break free with a strong enough effort of will. This just meant that he had to be separated from his counterpart, a woman with sack-like folds of loose skin dangling from her body. Judging by the facial expressions of the people around her, she was influencing their emotions, making them fearful and apathetic, or brave and confident, depending on the side. No wonder the cops were faring so badly.

And as for the man with the steel cables extruding from his back-

Richie blinked and navigated back to the feed from that specific drone to see Steel Cables loading something into an airplane. Where the heck had Ebon gotten an airplane?

"Oh, no," Richie said in horror as he recognized it as a crop duster. "No, no, no..." Ebon was going to spray the city.

He punched in the last few commands for the butlers and took off back down the stairs. The elevator was too slow, the butlers were too slow, even his own feet were too slow.

 _Focus, think!_ He told himself as he ran. How long did he have before Ebon and Steel Cables took off? How could he stop the plane without letting the gas out? Running down there and trying to confront them himself was just about the stupidest thing he could do.

But that's what he was doing. He couldn't risk running to the police—they were in the middle of a battlefield. He slapped his head as he jumped down the last couple steps and got out his shockvox, selected a frequency.

"This is Gear. Does anybody copy? Police, do you copy?" he panted into the radio, pausing to plan the best route to the airplane. It was sitting in a parking lot a block or so away under darkened street lights, unnoticed thanks to the chaos going on around the labs.

The 'vox crackled in his hand with the desperate chatter between the officers and the intel being relayed out by the butlers. He continued trying to contact them as he ran, climbing over a fence between the Alva property and the next set of office buildings and skidding down a gravel embankment. He ran through parking lots and squishy, over-watered grass, coming to a stop at the corner of an insurance management firm.

Richie grimaced, wishing he still had Backpack and his helmet. He felt blind without the constant streams of information the robot gave him. He really needed to make a more durable model, the way the things kept breaking. At least this time he'd backed up Backpack's brain on a set of CDs, so he wouldn't have to reprogram the whole thing.

 _Delete new robot design tracks._ He had to stay focused. He closed his eyes and listened, trying to figure out what Steel Cables and his possible colleagues were doing. Were they still loading the plane? He had to delay them. The longer he held them back, the more likely it was someone else would come find the plane.

Richie looked around, then jogged along the side of the building, towards the plane, until he found a window he could reach. He created a track that blotted out physical pain and smashed his fist and the sharp corner of the shockvox through the glass.

Shards cut his skin but he didn't feel it yet, at least not consciously. Glass crashed around him, falling onto the ground and into the room beyond. He knocked away the shards covering the ledge, glancing in the direction of the lot that held the plane. A shadow appeared at the corner of the building, writhing metal tentacles glinting in the moonlight.

A tentacle whipped after him, but Richie was already hauling himself in through the window. The man shouted at him as he ran through the open plan office space, squinting in the darkness. There, not too far from the glowing red exit sign, was the thing he was looking for. Fire alarm.

He yanked on it with bloodied fingers. Lights flashed and alarms screamed, turning the empty office into a rave. That would bring some attention.

Richie turned to run, but something cold and hard grabbed his foot. He fell and was dragged backwards, head and back scraped against the carpet, and then he was lifted up into the air. Steel coils wrapped around him, uncomfortably tight.

He writhed, trying to shout, and then blackness took him.

It wasn't that he had passed out, but rather that Ebon had portaled him and the tentacled man out of the office building and into somewhere darker and quieter. They were outside again, within sight of the broken window. Gunfire popped in the distance.

"Boss?" Richie's captor grunted.

"Get back to work, Chainlink. I'll deal with this one."

Richie was traded from one monster to another, not sure if he had just gone from the frying pan to the fire or someplace even worse. Ebon held him in one massive hand, crushing him just as Chainlink had.

"Hello, Gear," Ebon said, creating a chair out of darkness and sitting on it. A similar chair appeared underneath Richie and he was forced into a seated position, still wrapped head to toe in Ebon's grip. Richie wrinkled his nose. The chairs and the bonds were all part of Ebon's body, props made of flesh. As Ebon did this, a portal popped into existence next to him and he thrust a tendril of darkness into it. Bit by bit the sound of fire alarms went quiet.

Alarms extinguished, Ebon returned his attention to Richie. "Some peace and quiet. Good. I don't think we've ever had the chance to talk."

The wraps around Richie's head slid away, but the rest of him was still immobile, trapped in Ebon's supernaturally strong clutches. "I dunno why not when you had me locked up for ten hours, like, just last week," Richie said. It had actually been nine hours and forty-five minutes, and a little more than a week ago, but Richie was rounding.

"You know, I'm still not sure about you," Ebon said, not responding to Richie's attempt at being snarky. "Fade thinks you're one of us, all this garbage about tracks and inventing things."

Richie went cold. How did Ebon know about that? How his power worked was extremely private information. His brain flashed through a list of all known bang babies, trying to match up one of them with Ebon's "Fade." The invisible guy. The one Adam had fought. Had he been spying on him the whole time? How had he avoided detection?

Richie pushed that thought aside, pushed his fear aside as Ebon continued.

"So I'm giving you this chance. Prove it to me you're something special. Prove it to me you're not just _human_ and I'll let you live." There was a hint of a smile in Ebon's voice. He was like a cat, torturing a bird just for the fun of it.

Richie didn't know how to do what Ebon asked. His power wasn't like Virgil's or Francis's or even Maria's, it was more subtle. But even as he searched for a way to prove himself, he realized something else.

"That's why you didn't just kill Virgil after you escaped. You think that 'cause he's a bang baby he gets a pass? Like he's better than everybody else?"

Ebon's masklike face remained unchanged, but his tone was harder when he spoke, less pretending to be friendly. "He _is_ better. He is the child of iron and lightning."

"His powers don't make him better than other people," Richie said. It was his morals that did that.

Ebon smiled, a mouth appearing on an otherwise featureless face, created to make Richie uncomfortable. "So you think I should have killed your friend?"

"No, I-"

Ebon interrupted him. "Static has a place in the world to come. He has the right to rule and he knows it, even if he denies it and fights for the wrong side. Would he have fought _me_ if he didn't have the power?"

Richie remained silent. It was true, neither he nor Virgil would have gone vigilante if they didn't have their powers, and what right, really, did they have to do that? None whatsoever. Powers didn't put them above the law and common sense.

But to Ebon, having powers meant the right or even the duty to use them. Although, Richie thought, what was power really but the ability to control the world and the people around you? You didn't need super strength if you had buckets of money and charisma. If Ebon had won the lottery instead of getting superpowers he probably would have hired a bunch of armed goons and done pretty much the same thing as he'd done in real life.

"Where's Talon?" Richie asked. It was semi-rhetorical. He knew she was in prison, that she had chosen to stay there to be protected from her one time gang leader.

Ebon's creepy smile melted back into flat smoothness. Richie held back a smile of his own. He'd touched a nerve.

"Corrupted," Ebon said with distaste, "by frightened humans trying to keep the status quo. That'll change once the balance is tipped in my favor." He pulled Richie in closer. "But you still haven't proved your worth. Why shouldn't I kill you for your meddling?"

Richie stared Ebon down. He'd seen the stuff Richie could make—wasn't that proof enough? No normal fifteen year old kid could really build rocket skates or a functional AI, no matter his resources.

"So expose me," Richie heard himself say. "Then I'll definitely be one of you." It was a flaw in Ebon's logic and Richie's mouth had decided to exploit it before his brain could run a simulation of the consequences. With exposure to the gas, every human had the potential of becoming metahuman. By Ebon's metric, he shouldn't kill _any_ humans because they _all_ had the possibility of becoming what he wanted them to be.

"No, I don't think so," Ebon said. "The gas gets to choose who joins my ranks and who dies when the time comes, but it's up to me to decide who will have that chance."

Richie shivered. How many out of those exposed had died? Lots, he was pretty sure. Maybe a third or half at the big bang?

"My proof?" Ebon asked in a low voice. He sounded like his patience was wearing thin.

"I can do math," Richie tried. "I bet there's a calculator in-"

"No. Any human can learn to do arithmetic in their head."

A siren blared in the distance as a fire truck approached. Ebon looked up, then created a new portal, sending another questing tentacle into it. A couple moments later, a distant alarm sounded, coming from a different office building further down the street. The firefighters would go there instead.

Ebon's coils twisted, impatient, and Richie had to use his power to force himself to be calm, not start panicking. He was running out of time, but what could he do? Ebon wasn't going to let him have the tools he needed to build something. But what else could he do with his power?

"I can draw..." Really, all of his hand-eye coordination was way better than it had been, but that was moot if Ebon kept him immobile.

"One more chance," Ebon said, face featureless and expressionless.

Richie clenched his fists, still pinned to his sides by Ebon's bulk, sweaty and wet. He blinked. No, it wasn't sweat, it was blood. He'd forgotten something, or at least overlooked it.

"I can turn off pain."

Ebon created eyebrows and raised them. "Now that's interesting," Ebon said, his voice barely a whisper. He formed a portal and retrieved something from it, something bulky and colored like a yellow jacket, stainless steel reflecting dully in the dim light. A cord-free circular saw. He gave the power button a push and the saw growled.

Richie panicked. He thrashed against Ebon's grip, crying for help. Ebon wrapped him tighter, forced his mouth shut.

"Sit still, boy, and you won't get hurt. Presumably. But if you scream, you die."

Richie bit his lip in fear, tears streaming as he checked and checked again with the Administrator, making sure his senses of pain and pressure were totally muted. He tasted blood in his mouth as he bit too hard on his lip, unable to tell how hard was too hard. He felt disoriented, like his body wasn't really his own.

The saw growled again, then its tone changed as it tore into the flesh on his upper arm. Blood filled the air and Richie looked away but he didn't scream. He didn't feel it as the saw bit into bone, but the sound changed again, the growl turning into a whine.

And then he did feel something. A blast of heat to the back of his head, so warm it _should_ have hurt.

Ebon dropped him and Richie fell to the ground, unable to clear his head or consciously understand what was going on. It was taking all his processing power to blot out the pain and keep from going into shock.

Some kind of fight was going on, leaving Ebon distracted.

He pushed himself to his feet, his right arm dangling by a thread, useless. With the last of his strength, he climbed in through the broken window again to hide from the fight and staunch the bleeding.

Some office worker had left a cardigan hanging from the back of her chair and Richie wrapped up his arm in that, then slumped on the ground, leaning against a desk. He checked his pocket for his shockvox, but it wasn't there. He must have dropped it. A phone?

He reached up to the desk above him, groping for the office phone he'd seen there. His numb fingers bumped into something and he yanked it down. The phone clattered to the ground and Richie dialed 9-1-1.

"Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?" the operator asked immediately.

"Bleeding," Richie said, his voice distant in his ears. "Arm. 'M in a insurance place. By Alva labs."

He closed his eyes as the operator asked him questions. He wanted to answer, but he just couldn't seem to understand what it was she wanted to know.

"Sir, stay with me sir. What's your name?"

Richie thought about it, not sure what to say.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

So... violence. Will Richie be okay? x_x

Bilingual bonus:

 _modo de ser_ = way of existing/mode of existence

 _extraterrestre_ = alien

I hope Maria's section turned out readable. Hers wasn't the easiest POV to write.


	22. Heroes

_**Attn.**_ _Violence and swearing this chapter._

* * *

 **22 Heroes**

Tyler dozes in his booster seat in the back of the car. Him and his family are driving back from visiting Granny and Poppy down in Iowa City for Granny's birthday.

He watches the tops of the trees and the stars slide past the window, not really awake, but not asleep either. A man outlined in green shoots between the trees, flying. Tyler smiles, dreaming of flight and superheroes.

 **22.1 Inferno**

Francis felt torn. He stood in the street, a maelstrom of wind, fire and ice around him. His opponent stood facing him, ten yards down the road in a swirling vortex of her own. She was intent on killing him and the cops—the _people—_ he was trying to protect. That should have been enough for him to man up and take her down.

But he couldn't do it. She was only a little girl. Maybe eight or nine years old with big dark eyes, weary and sunken into her icy blue face. He could imagine her being a younger version of Maria, with her long dark hair and tired look.

So instead he'd led her away as much as he could, keeping her focused on him so she wouldn't freeze the cops to death.

The fire raged inside him, aching to get out, but Francis was well practiced now at not letting it escape willy nilly. He kept his clothes from getting totally wrecked and managed to avoid burning down any trees, cars, people or buildings. Only his hair was actually on fire, and that was mostly 'cause it looked cool.

The ice girl stared at him across the distance and a cold wind rushed toward him, dissipating before it even got close. He fired back, thrusting a fist at her so she could see where he was aiming and sidestep his blast. That was how he'd gotten her out to the street, which cracked and buckled as it melted and froze under their influence.

The girl screamed in frustration and Francis could see the cold emanating off of her. It spread out in all directions, frost creeping across the ground, the grass on the meridian turning to frozen needles.

Francis turned up the heat, creating a wall of fire between her and the cops. His flames were weak though, fueled solely by his power, which she was stifling. He took a step towards her, trying to make an aura of heat to cancel what she was doing. Frost melted before his feet, but he still shivered as cold air blasted against him.

The girl wiped her forehead, dripping with sweat. She screamed again and ran at him, hands outstretched.

Francis laughed. What, did she think she was gonna slap him or something? He stepped aside as she ran at him, lifting his arm over her head. She grabbed his smoldering shirt with one hand, tearing it off, and smacked him in the chest with the other. He gasped. Her hand stuck to him like he was a flagpole and she was an idiot kid in the middle of winter.

She smiled up at him like something out of a horror movie and Francis punched her in the head. She stumbled back, the chill around them warming up. Francis hit her with a blast of heat before she fully recovered and she yelped.

"Paco!"

Maria was there, she'd seen him hit a little girl. Francis cringed.

"Get her out of here!" he shouted. He didn't want to have to hurt her again.

"Okay," Maria said. She ruffled his flaming hair and picked up the girl, carrying her screaming into the night.

Francis looked down at his chest. There was a red and white handprint where the girl had touched him, blisters already forming.

He didn't have time to worry about it though, as an alarm cut through the sounds of fighting. Not from the Alva buildings, but from the next complex over. Francis frowned. He hadn't set anything on fire and it seemed like both the cops and the bang babies were trying to keep things contained to the parking lot and lawn in front of the lab.

With the ice girl out of the way, the cops looked like they were holding their own, or at least not dying so much anymore. Jacked up like he was, Francis knew he'd be a danger to them more than the other bang babies so he took off at a jog to investigate the alarm, his sneakers leaving gummy footprints in his wake.

This building was built on a slope, down the hill from the street, some kind of big, boring office building. Francis jumped down the stairs that went from the sidewalk to the entrance and punched his way through the glass door. He took a breath, put a damper on the flames and went inside.

"Anybody here?" he shouted. There was no smoke in the air, no crackling flames. Was it a burglar alarm then? He could take on a burglar.

Then the alarm shut off. Slowly, like each individual bell was being turned off one by one. Francis jumped and swore as a swirling pit of darkness opened up in the wall beside him and a vine reached up and out of it, even blacker than the pit it came from.

The vine probed up the wall, found the ringing alarm bell, morphed into an arm with a giant hand at the end of it and crushed the bell in its fist. Then it slithered back to where it came from and the hole disappeared.

Francis rubbed his cheek, mouth open. Was that Ebon? He backed out of the building, confused and a little scared. From what he'd heard the guy was a nut, dangerous and insane. No problem with killing and hurting people. He'd known Ebon was here, that he was organizing the attack, but since he hadn't seen him yet, he figured the shadow guy was off hiding somewhere else.

Francis swore. _This_ was somewhere else. Ebon was here, doing something nefarious while his minions screwed with the police by the lab. Well, whatever he was doing, Francis couldn't let him do it.

But how to find him? Francis had a whole building to search and it was a big one. He knew if he went inside, he'd end up running around in circles. No, better to check the outside first, see if he could find any lights on or broken windows or other clues that'd show him where Ebon was hiding.

He took off running again along the side of the building. As he rounded the corner he heard something. Muffled swearing and the sounds of someone doing some heavy lifting. He paused to listen more, then crept forward, craning his neck around the corner, and snorted in surprise. Ebon had a whole fricking airplane wedged into the parking lot. A big guy with metal tentacles was loading something into the plane, but clearly having a tough time of it.

No Ebon though, just tentacle guy, who was totally absorbed in what he was doing. Francis tip-toed past him, ducking under the airplane's wing. Over the sounds of the tentacle guy's exertion and his own breathing, Francis heard voices. One deep and smooth, the other higher and breathy. The second one he recognized. Gear.

Both voices went quiet and a mechanical buzz split the air. Then Gear screamed. The scream was cut short, but it had caught the tentacle guy's attention, who spotted Francis.

Francis swore and sprinted towards Gear, tentacle guy on his heels. He set up a wall of flame behind him and was stopped short by what he saw around the corner. Ebon was wrapped around the blond kid like a snake, chopping him to pieces with a power saw.

"Ey!" Francis yelled at him, too horrified to actually make any words. He fired a beam at the monster, who dropped the kid and the saw. He lunged at Francis, a table-sized fist slamming into him.

Francis landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him. Ebon pooled on top of him, shapeless, surprisingly light for all his strength.

"You dare interfere?" Ebon hissed.

Francis coughed, trying to breathe, and then he burned. Flames exploded from nowhere, burning the air itself. Not as bright as Static's lights maybe, but bright enough.

Above him, Ebon condensed, getting heavier and smaller. He looked almost human. Francis swung a leg and flipped himself on top of the other man, wondering how to put a choke hold on a guy who could change shape.

And then something hard and cold wrapped around his waist, lifted him up into the sky and flung him into the asphalt of the parking lot. He landed on his side, one arm wrapped around his head so it wouldn't pop like an egg, chunks of tar and gravel tearing into his skin. He coughed again and groaned but didn't let his fires go out.

"Get him out of here!" Ebon screamed.

Francis lifted his head, then rolled out of the way as the tentacle guy tried to grab him again. Metal crashed against asphalt and Francis got to his feet, pained and woozy, his remaining clothes turned to smoking shreds.

Tentacle guy shouted something at him, squinting and rubbing his eyes against the smoke as he tried to grab Francis again. Francis stepped to the side and let loose his restraints. Tentacle guy screamed as Francis turned his power on him, the high, painful sound drowned out by the roar of flames.

Francis his attention to the plane. That plane was part of Ebon's plan and Francis couldn't let him have it. He pointed one smoldering palm at the plane's belly, wondering where the gas tank was.

"What are you doing?" Ebon shouted. He had the power saw in one hand and was stalking towards Francis through the flames and smoke. "How can you fight for the humans?"

"You wanna fuck people up, you sick fuck," Francis shouted back. "I ain't having that."

Ebon rushed him, swinging the power saw as the plane finally exploded.

The fireball engulfed them both and Francis screamed as the saw cut into his chest. The battery died and the plastic was melting but Ebon still forced the unmoving blade into him, melting himself.

The monster collapsed onto him. Black tar, Ebon's body, stuck to Francis, heavy and warm and suffocating.

The flames died down, leaving acrid smoke behind. Francis coughed, choking. He couldn't breathe, could barely stand from his wounds and the weight of Ebon's body. He took a step and tripped on black tar. The stuff was everywhere and he couldn't get out of it. His lungs burned from the smoke, the pain and the familiar, terrible smell.

It wasn't just smoke. Gas. The gas had been on the plane.

Francis tried to crawl away but he couldn't. He was too weighed down, too clumsy and hurt. He lay on the ground, unable to escape, unable even to pass out. He coughed and coughed, angry frustrated and wishing this would just end.

 **22.2 Catching up**

It turned out Ebon had portaled me into a park. Not like a slides and swingsets park, but a state park about ten miles south-southwest of the city. After about fifteen minutes crashing through the bushes I managed to find a trail and from there I found a road and it was only about forty-five minutes later that I was zipping along a power line headed back for the city.

When I was still about five miles out I managed to get ahold of the police through the shockvox. Five miles and half a city was pretty dang impressive for something that had once been an off the shelf walkie-talkie. I was gonna have to complement Richie next time I saw him.

"What's going on?" I asked the officer on the other end. By coincidence, it was Officer Davis, the one who'd helped me during Ebon's first attack. I had to slow down a little so I could focus on the conversation while flying, but I figured being informed was worth it. Farmland rolled past me in the night.

"It's the big bang all over again," she said. "Only worse."

I cringed. "Worse how?"

"Darkstreak," she said.

"Huh?"

"That's what we've been calling it. Aquamaria says its a fusion of Ebon and Hotstreak. It's as good a theory as any and that's what the media has latched onto."

"Aquamaria?" I asked.

"That's what we're calling her. Water girl with telekinetic powers. Do you know her?"

"Yeah," I said, still feeling out of the loop. "Listen, can you start from the beginning? What went down?"

Officer Davis sighed and told me the whole crazy story. She told me how Ebon had attacked the Alva labs and then the police when they showed up. He had a whole new set of metahumans under his control too—the ones I'd briefly seen on my way to meet with Alva. Francis and Maria had shown up and fought them and it had looked for a second like the good guys were going to win. Something about butler-bots telling the cops how to defeat the bang babies and Francis duking it out with the ice girl.

But then an airplane full of bang baby gas had exploded and everything had gone to hell. Darkstreak was rampaging across the neighborhood, with only Aquamaria holding it at bay while Ebon's new recruits ran wild. Half of the police force was exposed—dead, dying or transformed while the gas kept on spreading.

The epicenter wasn't in a residential area, thankfully, but there were still plenty of people around, namely police, firefighters, medical workers and media.

"What about the hospital?" If something had happened to Pops...

"Busy, but safe," Officer Davis said, sounding glad she could give me some kind of good news.

"And Gear?" I asked. I figured Ebon had done the same to him as he'd done to me. Portaled him away, safe and sound in the middle of nowhere.

Officer Davis paused. "I don't know. I haven't heard anything about him."

I gritted my teeth. There was nothing I could do about Richie right now. He was either safe or he wasn't and my knowing wasn't going to change which it was.

"Right. My sister?"

"I could try calling her for you," she offered.

"Yeah, okay. Can you tell her I'm sorry? But first, anything else I need to know? Where can I go to help the most?"

"Aquamaria has Darkstreak in the business park and under control, but if you can deal with the new recruits..."

"Yeah, I can."

"Good. The League's sending a hero, so you won't be on your own. Stop by the station first though. You're going to need a gas mask."

"Right. Be there in twenty minutes. Static out." I shoved the 'vox back in my pocket and screamed the rest of the way to the city, flying as fast as I could.

Officer Davis met me at the station where she got me fitted for a gas mask and gave me a couple last minute updates.

"Sharon is fine and hopes you're safe," she said while I plugged myself into a wall outlet. I was willing to bet Sharon had some more explicit things to say that Officer Davis was editing out, but I appreciated that she'd got in touch with Sharon for me.

"Most of the recruits have split up and we don't know where they are, but the one we're calling Ridgeback broke into some houses near the business park."

"What do you know about him?"

Officer Davis shrugged. "He's big, scaly and angry. We don't know much about any of these guys. Working theory is that Ebon got his hands on some gas earlier and exposed these guys to be his followers before trying to infect the entire populace."

"Or they were left from Alva's experiments," I said darkly.

Davis looked at me in surprise, disbelief. "Alva?"

I grimaced. If only we'd gone to the police immediately, rather than sitting around _talking_ about it all day yesterday. Then Ebon might not have found out and this whole thing might have been avoided. Maybe it was the extra juice running through me, but I really wanted to kill something at that moment.

"Yeah," I said, not looking at her eyes. "It's a long story, but we figured it out yesterday. Richie's got the tapes on Backpack and this girl Miranda can give you the whole rundown too."

Officer Davis scribbled what I'd said in her notepad and asked me a couple follow up questions. Then her radio crackled, reporting a robbery at a bank near Wacouta Hill. While she tried to pull together a squad to deal with it I unplugged myself from the wall and went to do my duty.

Finding this Ridgeback guy wasn't all that hard. He was at the end of a trail of busted-in front doors, a sack of valuables over his shoulder. We were about a mile from the business park, on the other side of the highway, but I could still see flames and hear the sounds of crashes and explosions coming from Maria's fight with "Darkstreak."

"Hey, you!" I shouted, dropping down behind the creature. He was kind of a yellowy-brown color, scaled and tailed like a crocodile, with short spines running down his back. He opened his snout and roared at me, a black cloud pouring forth. Flies.

I wrinkled my nose inside the gas mask and ignored the biting insects. I was a human bug zapper. I closed the gap between me and the brute and gave him a taste of electricity. He convulsed, more flies spewing from his maw before he collapsed, unconscious. I swatted away the bugs with my disk, then cuffed him with some heavy duty zip-ties—a gift from the police—and radioed for Officer Davis.

"I'm gonna check on Maria," I said once I'd given her the address where I'd left a couple civilians armed with kitchen ware and bug spray to guard the fallen Ridgeback. "Lemme know if you need me somewhere else."

I flew fast to the business park, trying to focus on the now rather than my overwhelming guilt and frustration. I'd broken my promise to Sharon, I'd been too selfish to prevent this from happening and I'd been too slow in getting back. If only I'd done things differently, the city wouldn't be like this right now. If only I'd been smarter, faster, everyone would've been safe. Something in my stomach felt hot and hard and angry and everything I'd vented on Ridgeback hadn't been enough to cool it. I needed something bigger and tougher to take my anger out on.

I stopped, hovering above a parked car a block or so from the Alva buildings on the other side of the street, taking in the carnage. Smoke rose into the sky, lit from beneath by lingering flames and sickly street lights. The ground all around the lab building was torn apart, chunks of cement and police cars sprinkled like confetti across the mud. There were a few nastier remains mixed in too, but I tried to ignore those.

And further down the street, smashed up against the iconic ALVA sign, was Darkstreak.

It was huge, maybe forty feet tall, a figure made of darkness and flames. It belched fire and smoke into the sky, squirming against a giant metal A pressed into its chest. Another figure, this one normal sized and made of water, floated before it while down below a fire truck sprayed hoses at the monster, trying to put out its unending flames.

I lowered myself to the roof of the car, awed. Smoke and fire fingers raked the air, trying to swipe at Maria, but she didn't move, holding back the beast. How long had she been there? Would she last until the League's hero arrived?

I had to help. Hotstreak's weakness was water, Ebon's light. I could do this. I'd screwed up, but I was here now and I would do what I could. We had to subdue this thing, see how much of Francis was left inside. Did Darkstreak remember who it was supposed to be? Was it Ebon in control, or Francis or neither? I didn't care if Ebon got hurt, killed even, but Francis? Maybe he was a jerk and a bully and I didn't like him, but he still didn't deserve this.

I closed my eyes, reaching out with my electro-sense. I was going to need tools. Lights.

There was something strange inside the insurance firm across the street. Another bang baby? It was funny. I could almost always tell bang babies apart from other people, but I couldn't tell men from women or kids from dogs. I shook my head. As long as the bang baby didn't attack me, I would leave them alone. For now I needed to focus on gathering light bulbs.

I popped the hood of the car I was standing on and jumped down to extract the headlights. As I reached inside something whooshed overhead. I was picked up, thrown down the street. Only my power and my disk kept me from getting seriously hurt.

I jumped to my feet and got my disk under me, ready to fight the bang baby that had attacked. Up above, a brilliant green light shone in the air next to Maria. More light enveloped Darkstreak, who breathed a gout of flame at the green man. A glowing shield blocked it and I realized who the man was. Green Lantern.

Finally, the Justice League. How long had it taken them to send help? Four months? Or was it just that now we had a giant monster that it merited a response?

I scowled, zooming after the hero on my disk, headlights forgotten, ready to give this hero a piece of my mind.

Darkstreak shook, melted into a giant, tarry puddle, reformed again outside Green Lantern's grasp. The monster snatched at Maria like it wanted so smack her out of the air, but Green Lantern caught the blow, as if a smack like that could actually hurt her.

"Stay back!" he shouted as I got close, diverting another gout of flames up and into the sky. Even from where I was standing, I could feel the heat and power behind the blast, hot air tearing at my coat and hair.

The magnitude of it hit me then, the sheer scale of the forces at play. I stood on my disk and watched, open-mouthed as Darkstreak roared, tendrils of flame and darkness exploding out of him. The facade of the building behind him cracked and melted, but the blast didn't touch me, a shimmering green wall forming around me like a protective hand.

"Get out of here!" Green Lantern shouted and his aegis slid my disk and me away from the fight. I blinked, reminded I was supposed to be more than just a spectator.

"Water and light!" I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted. "That should slow him down. He might could use portals, so look out!"

The hero nodded and raised one fist into the air, green-white light turning the night into monochrome day.

I squinted behind my gas mask and left the hero to his work. I would have to take on somebody my own size. I scanned again with my electro-sense and found that same bang baby inside the insurance building. They hadn't moved.

I zoomed across the street and into the darkened building, half destroyed and burning in places from Darkstreak's rampage. I shored up what I could as I crept along, but it was clear the whole thing was going to come down sooner rather than later.

The bang baby was slumped against a desk down on the first floor in a big office space next to a broken window. I fed some juice into the overhead lights and gasped. It was Richie. Blood pooled all around him but I couldn't see where he was hurt. He was alive though and the gas was doing its work. Muscles writhed under his skin like snakes inside a balloon and the skin itself was going shiny in places. Metallic.

He was still recognizable though. I tried to wake him up, shouting at him, shaking his shoulder. He didn't move, except for the snakes under his skin. I had to get him out, get him fresh air before he was totally transformed.

Something crashed and I jumped. It was either Darkstreak and the hero or part of the building falling down, but regardless I didn't have much time.

I slid my disk under Richie's back and floated him up to about waist height, supporting his head in my hands. His arms and legs dragged on the ground, one arm splitting apart like a handful of dry spaghetti, bendy metal rods catching on the office carpet.

"Oh, God." I raised him up higher, spun him around and pushed him out the way I'd came. I glanced for a second at Green Lantern, who was now holding Maria in a protective bubble while he smashed in Darkstreak's face with a giant green fist.

 _He's a pro_ , I told myself. _She's gonna be okay. They're both gonna be okay_. I shook my head and reminded myself that I had to keep moving.

I was still all kinds of supercharged, so rather than call and wait for an ambulance that might not come, I broke into the car I'd hovered above before and loaded Richie into the back. It wasn't alarmed, thank goodness. I forced the gearshift into neutral and rolled the car down the street, picking up speed, headed for the hospital.

I radioed the police as I piloted the car to see if they'd dealt with Ridgeback yet and let them know where I was headed and with who. But not how, since it was still a year and a month before I could get my license, and I may have just committed a felony.

####

Like Officer Davis had said, the hospital was a madhouse, cars, people and ambulances rushing around, making noise. Richie still hadn't woken up and I carried him out on the disk.

"Gas?" a masked attendant shouted at me before I even got to the emergency room door. Inside I could see the staff wearing full on gas masks like mine, or at least surgical masks and safety glasses.

"Yeah," I said and the guy called for a stretcher. Two nurses came running from inside, pushing one in front of them and together we loaded Richie onto it. I trotted behind as they wheeled him onto an elevator. Even as we moved, the nurses cut Richie's clothes off him, stuffing them into biohazard bags and taping oxygen tubes under his nose. A hospital gown covered his nudity, a swim cap went over his hair and I realized they were trying to remove or quarantine anything on him that could hold pockets of air—places the gas could hide in.

I cringed, seeing what the gas had already done to him. His skin wasn't writhing anymore, but a lot of it didn't look much like skin. Silvery and metallic in places, hard and plasticky in others. His right arm had come apart, turned into dozens of bendy metal rods, which clinked and jingled as the stretcher bumped over the gap between the elevator and the floor.

A doctor rushed over and took control of the situation. He was a youngish white man with bags under his eyes and a sharp widow's peak that made him look like a vampire.

"Another one?" he muttered to himself as he pressed a stethoscope against Richie's chest, checked his temperature with a digital thermometer. He nodded and wrote something on a clipboard and the nurses wheeled the stretcher into a rec room of sorts, other stretchers with patients already in there. The regular rooms were full.

"Your relation?" the doctor asked as we walked, still writing.

"Uh, yeah," I said, not wanting to get kicked out. "My brother."

The doctor glanced between me and Richie like he didn't quite believe that, but he didn't argue. "His name?"

"Richard Foley."

The doctor asked me a couple more questions—address, contact info for our parents—and I gave him Richie's home phone number. The nurse drew a blood sample and put him on a saline solution and told me I could stay with him if I wanted, but I should keep the mask on. The doctor would be back for a more thorough check up once he had a moment and my "brother" was awake. But I shouldn't worry. If he'd made it this far, he was going to live.

There weren't any chairs, so I sat cross legged on my disk, trying to get over how inhuman Richie looked. It was like he'd been turned into an android or something, all metal and plastic. I'd come a long way since first meeting William at Dr. Lobner's office, but I was still uncomfortable, the same kind of discomfort I felt when I saw Pops hooked up to the ventilators and stuff. It made me feel bad, guilty. It wasn't my fault, at least not this time, but it still wasn't fair that they had to live with stuff like this and I was perfectly fine.

Dr Lobner had told me that holding onto this level of guilt wasn't healthy. I wasn't responsible for everyone around me and instead of pitying those who weren't as lucky as me, I should work hard to balance treating them just like everybody else, while accommodating their needs.

"Imagine you have a friend," Dr Lobner had said, "who's deaf in one ear. You do all the same things with them that you do with the rest of your friends, but maybe when you're talking, you try to stay on their hearing side."

That hypothetical situation was easier to handle, even in my head, because it was a pretty minor problem, all things considered, and not really visible. But with Richie, how was I going to be able to forget about his problems? He looked like a robot and his arm was all come to pieces.

I took a breath. I was just gonna have to deal with it. Richie had always been there for me and now it was time to return the favor. It wasn't like he was dead or in a coma, he was gonna wake up soon and be pretty much fine, and I was gonna be there so he didn't have to be alone and freaked out. But first I had to make a phone call.

There was a pay phone down the hall and I borrowed a quarter and a phone book from the nurses' station and called up Sharon at the hotel.

She answered on the first ring and laughed, gasping when she heard my voice.

"Virgil? Where are you? Are you okay? The news is saying there's this giant monster and some guy from the Justice League is here. You're not with him, are you?"

"No. Shar, I'm at the hospital-"

Sharon let out a wail before I could finish and I shouted over her. "It's not me, it's Richie."

"Oh. Oh, no." She sounded relieved, and then not.

"He got gassed, but the doctor said he's gonna be fine."

"He didn't get... changed, did he?"

I glanced back down the hallway, even though I couldn't see him from here. Almost instinctively I tried to feel for him with my electro-sense, but held myself back so as not to ruin any medical equipment. It was a good thing I'd mostly burnt myself out dragging the car all the way to the hospital.

"Yeah. At least on the outside, I mean. He hasn't woke up yet."

"You want me to come down there?"

"Nah. At least not yet. It's crazy busy here. If you could pick us up once the doc lets him go, that'd be great."

"What about his folks?"

I'd forgotten about them. Richie never talked about them, so they were easy to forget. "Yeah, unless they wanna take him, of course. I'll call you when I know what the plan is."

"You're gonna stay there?"

"Yeah." The orderlies would have to drag me out kicking and screaming if they wanted me gone.

Sharon was silent, but I could imagine the look of approval on her face. "V?" She asked.

"What?"

"I'm sorry I got mad at you. I was just so worried."

"'S okay," I said. "I deserve it. Listen, I gotta keep an eye on Richie. Talk to you soon, okay?"

Sharon agreed and I took up my post next to Richie's bed again. He still hadn't woken up yet. I half smiled, remembering how he'd waited for me to wake up in the hospital two times now.

While I waited, I watched the medical staff rush around and tried not to stare too much at the other patients. It wasn't as crazy up here as it had been down in the emergency room—it looked like they were storing all the gas patients on this floor, at least the ones who appeared stable and unlikely to hurt themselves or others. There were probably two dozen of them all together.

Some of the new bang babies were up and awake and being attended to by the staff and their loved ones. Other family members milled about, waiting by bedsides, pacing the halls, or watching the TV in the far corner of the room where the news playing with the sound off.

I was yawning and wondering if I might as well go check on Pops while I was here when Richie woke up. Orange lights like LEDs blinked under his skin and he opened his eyes behind his glasses, sitting up. I winced, seeing his eyes. One, green and normal, the other a blank ball, glowing orange. The orange one was on his right side, the side that was way more metallic and screwed up.

But I couldn't let myself freak out. That would only make him freak out even worse than he probably already was. I got off my disk, standing up, and punched him lightly on the shoulder as he sat up.

"Hey, man. Welcome back. You feel okay?"

Richie started to say something, but it turned into a coughing fit. The orange lights dotting his metal skin turned red. I patted his back.

Fit subsided, he took a ragged breath and croaked, "Virgil?"

"You want a glass of water or something?"

Richie nodded and I got him a dixie cup from the water cooler in the hall. He drank it and handed the cup back to me, looking around.

"Ebon got the gas," I said. "Exploded outside the labs."

Richie tensed. "I know. Where is he?"

"Getting the stuffing kicked out of him by Green Lantern," I said, smirking behind my mask. I didn't need to tell him about what had happened to Francis, not yet.

Richie's eyebrows buried themselves in his hair. "Seriously?"

"He may have turned into a giant monster," I said, trying to sound nonchalant, but Richie winced. "But GL's got him on the ropes. The guy's a pro. He'll take him down, I promise."

"Mm." Richie grunted and looked down at the splintered remains of his right arm. He frowned and the thin rods twitched, then twisted together to form an arm and hand. It looked jagged, sharp. He flexed the fingers and then examined the arm, poking at the bicep with his normal hand where the rods joined together into smooth metallic skin.

He flexed his fingers again and laughed as though in relief. I guess he was just glad it worked.

We talked for a couple minutes, trying to keep it as light as possible while I filled him in, and I realized this wasn't going to be so hard. Richie was still the same person, he just looked weird, and he'd probably be able to fix that eventually.

The vampirish doctor came over and gave Richie a more thorough check up, looking in his eyes and ears, checking his reflexes, lung capacity, blood pressure. The whole time he talked with Richie, making sure he was lucid and understood what was going on.

"We tried calling your parents but the man on the other end said we had a wrong number," the doctor said. He held out the clipboard with Richie's information on it. "Is this number correct?"

The pink parts of Richie's face turned pinker. "Uh," he said, but I jumped in.

"Yeah, sorry, that's our old number. We, uh, just moved and um..."

I was stopped by the doctor's stern look.

"Don't lie to me, Static." He turned to Richie. "I need to get in touch with your parents, Richard."

Richie looked down at his knees covered by the hospital gown. "We had a fight. Wasn't a big deal, just some yelling."

The doctor sighed. "I just need an adult whose custody I can release you to."

Fortunately I had a solution. "Sharon said she'd do it. My—our—sister," I explained to the doctor. He rolled his eyes and took down the number for the hotel.

Sharon showed up a half hour later wearing a sweatshirt over her pajamas, a trashbag of clothes in one hand. She squealed when she found us and hugged Richie so hard I thought I heard his plastic cracking. Richie went to the bathroom to change into the clothes Sharon had brought—stuff Adam had left in her hotel room, apparently—while Sharon signed the paperwork the doctor gave her, nodding seriously as he told her how best to deal with his follow-up treatment.

It wasn't too much longer before we were all piled in her car, the sun rising beside us.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Well, I'd managed to avoid F-bombs this far, but I think this chapter warranted it. Poor Francis.

Not a whole lot of story left now, folks. Maybe 2 or three chapters? If you've made it this far, way to go! Thanks for reading!


	23. Progress

**23 Progress**

"Sí, lo haré," dice María. Ya no tiene porque quedarse en Dakota. Agarra la pluma y firma el papel que se la han dado.

 **23.1 Ice Cream**

It was the middle of the afternoon and me and Richie were laying on my hotel bed, eating ice cream and watching the news. Shelly Sandoval, looking a little star-struck, was speaking with Green Lantern.

"It was a regrettable series of events and I promise that the League will make full reparations to Stone's family, in addition to covering the costs of repairs to all businesses and residencies that were damaged," Lantern said, his face and tone neutral.

We'd seen the a couple video clips of the fight, the ones from the camera drones Richie had hacked, and the hero hadn't been very concerned about property damage, or even damage to his enemy. He'd gone straight for the kill, not bothering with diplomacy or trying to subdue him.

"I guess that's how you get to act with unlimited funds and lawyers," I said, trying to make light of the situation. Francis was dead and we'd never know if he could have been saved. It was kinda like when Wade died, only worse 'cause I'd got to know Francis way better. He'd never been evil, just angry and irrational. I hadn't liked him, but that didn't mean I was fine with what had happened.

Richie nodded. "No kidding."

The ads came on and Richie turned off the volume.

"I hope Maria's okay," he said after a few seconds of TV actors silently touting the benefits of some new magic weight loss drug.

"Yeah," I said. "Me too." Even though she was invincible, her boyfriend had just been killed by a superhero. Or maybe by the gas explosion, depending how you looked at it. If we'd had a way to contact her, I would have. Not that either of us knew her very well, but because she was dealing with some heavy stuff and could probably use some help. I hoped she'd at least go see Dr. Lobner. She was probably the most helpful person I knew besides Pops.

I polished off my ice cream and put the bowl back on the room service tray, then sat down in the big cushioned desk chair next to the TV.

"Can I ask what happened with you and your folks?"

Richie rolled over and sat up, resting his chin on a metal fist. "I guess." He shrugged like it was no big deal and sighed. "Me and my dad got in a fight 'cause I told him I'm a bang baby and I offered to pay him to get his act together. Hurt his pride, I guess, and he kicked me out."

"Seriously?" That wasn't how fathers were supposed to act. I'd pictured Richie's dad as a jerk like Francis—mean and selfish, but ultimately with a good side.

"Yeah, seriously." He shrugged again. "I've been staying at the ASGOS."

"The ASGOS doesn't have running water or electricity," I pointed out. "You coulda stayed at a hotel."

Richie rolled his eyes, or at least his one normal eye. "Yeah, 'cause that's not sketchy at all, some teenage kid with wads of cash wanting to rent a hotel room all by himself."

He had a point. It would have raised some eyebrows. Not to mention he was locally famous. Shelly Sandoval probably would have come calling.

"Or, you know, my house. We got the extra room," I said.

"I didn't want to dump my problems on you guys," he said, more to the TV than to me.

"Dude, you know I got your back, right? Ever since Mom died, you've been like, consistently there for me. You gotta know I can return the favor, right?"

Richie bit his lip, like he was holding back tears. That wasn't really something I was prepared for, so I unmuted the TV just in time to learn about the once in a lifetime chance the lotto offered all responsible players over the age of eighteen. Through the ads I heard Richie sniff and I tossed him the box of tissues off the desk.

The news came back on and Dan Hastings announced that Edwin Alva had finally been found, locked inside a library supply closet. A little worse for the wear, but he was going to be fine. Healthy enough to handle the terrorism charges he faced, at least.

"You wanna go shoot some hoops after this?" I asked once the next round of commercials started and Richie looked like he was in control of himself again.

"Ehh," Richie said.

"Come on. It's not like we've got anything better to do." School was canceled, again, our lab was destroyed and our employer faced massive criminal charges. On top of that, Green Lantern was still in town, cleaning up the last of the bang baby chaos, doing our job for us.

"V, I... I don't really wanna go outside."

"Oh."

"I know I have to eventually, it's just..." He trailed off, holding up his mutated arm and letting it split apart into dozens of thin rods, like a metal mop.

I was about to impart some insight I'd heard Dr Lobner give at one of her group sessions about dealing with mutations when a knock came from the door. Me and Richie both jumped, the lights under his skin blinking yellow. His arm snapped back together with a clank.

A second later the person on the other side of the door knocked again and I went to answer it, berating myself for getting so surprised. It was probably just Sharon.

I opened the door and just about jumped out of my skin. The TV went fuzzy and Richie yelped as I pulsed juice. Green Lantern stood in front of me, stoic and unflinching at my outburst.

He was fully decked out in his hero uniform, green and black with a tiny mask that clung to his cheekbones, covering his eyes. A cloud of green light whorled around the ring on his right hand, herald of the immense power granted to him by ancient alien forces. He was tall, musclebound, intimidating.

"V, let him in," Richie hushed.

I blinked and stood aside so the hero could enter. He did, closing the door behind him.

"I'm looking for the girl Aquamaria," he said, barely looking at us as his eyes swept the room. That was the name the media had given her, not something she'd picked for herself, I was pretty sure.

Me and Richie shared a look.

"You tried her family yet? Sir?" Richie asked.

"We don't know her secret identity," the hero said.

"Have you talked with Francis's mom?" I suggested, the hero giving me a quizzical look. "She and him are—were—dating. Francis and Maria, I mean."

"Francis Stone," Green Lantern said, real emotion in his face for the first time, a note of surprise. Then the expression faded and he nodded at me. "I will speak with Mrs Stone."

He took a step to go, but Richie blurted out a question, getting him to stop. "What do you want Maria for?"

He glanced at Richie, as though he hadn't really noticed him before, his face still neutral.

"You know, in case we see her," Richie added, lamely.

"I have a job offer for her. Sidekick at the League."

My mouth dropped open in shock. "Seriously?"

"She's powerful. We could use her," he said, blase.

Something about his nonchalance got my ire up. "What about me and Richie? We've been fighting crime for months and months. She just happens to pick up the metaphoric cape on the same day you're in town and you go and recruit her, just like that? That's not fair!" I didn't really want to join the Justice League, not anymore, but after everything we'd gone through I felt we deserved some recognition beyond weird looks at school.

Green Lantern gave me a smile that didn't reach his masked eyes and he put a hand on my shoulder. "You've done good work, Static, but the League requires sturdier sidekicks. Besides, I think Dakota's still going to need its resident superheroes." He gave my shoulder a stiff pat and turned to go.

"Wait," Richie said. "One more question."

The hero looked down at his ring, the nebulous green light solidifying into a clock. "Make it quick."

"What about Alva? Why did he make the gas?"

Green Lantern rolled his eyes. "Make an army of mutants, destroy the city, take over the world. It's a common trope. He got pretty far, all things considered." He checked his improvised watch again and gave us a wave. "Thanks for the help boys. And keep up the good work." With that, he floated out of the room, the door closing behind him.

Still sitting on the bed, Richie snorted. "Well, that was a load of garbage."

 **23.2 Questions and Answers**

Me and Richie sat across from Edwin Alva Sr at his Wacouta Hill mansion. It was not the kind of home ever visited by children—pristine white leather couches, delicate vases on spindly tables, a bar cabinet in one corner, its jewel-like contents visible through crystal glass doors.

"So, are you here to kill me?" Alva asked. He looked haggard, a glass of some amber colored liquid in his hand, a bulge under his pant leg where the police tracking device was secured. He didn't sound too much like he cared one way or the other, but the guard standing at the front door probably did.

"We just want answers," I said.

"Thought I'd ask," Alva said, taking a sip of his drink. He set the cup on a coaster and regarded the two of us in our street clothes. It was the first time he'd seen us out of costume. "I'm guessing this isn't about the severance packages."

I shook my head, not in the mood for games. "The gas. Why'd you make it?"

"And how," Richie added.

"You don't want to make _more_ , do you?" he asked, incredulous. "I'd think you of all people..."

"I wanna figure out a cure," Richie said.

Alva made an approving face and raised his glass to Richie. "Good luck. I'll get you the data once the trial is over."

Richie blinked, clearly surprised Alva was being so cooperative. "Thanks."

Alva nodded, leaned back in his white leather chair. "As for why I did it, isn't it obvious I'm an evil old man, hungry to conquer the world? Isn't that what the League told you?"

"How'd you know that?" I asked. Sharon was the only person we'd told about our encounter with Green Lantern.

Alva laughed, not a sound I expected to hear from him right now. "I know how the world works, son. Haven't you seen this scenario a hundred times before? Some crazed genius discovers a new power and goes wild with it. And then, just in the nick of time, the League steps in, one of our glorious heroes saving the day. Six months later a new comic book comes out, based on a true story, of course.

"Society is inundated with them. Our self-sacrificing saviors, protecting the planet from the forces of evil." He laughed again. "Our self-interested overlords, more like. What percentage of the League is actually human? And how many of those got their powers through their own creativity and cleverness?"

I thought about it. Not many. Richie could probably come up with an exact number, but he stayed quiet as well, waiting for Alva to get to his point.

Alva took another drink from his glass, the liquid mostly gone now. "Humanity deserves to be governed by humans, not some select few strangers chosen by arbitrary gods. And not the rare human who got lucky and discovered their own source of power either. We deserve someone thoughtful and compassionate, someone who can relate to humanity and ultimately be chosen _by_ humanity to lead them.

"But that's not the way the world works," Alva said, looking at me and Richie but not really seeing us, his eyes glazed and distant. "Those with power assume they can do what they want, destroy what they want, simply because they have the power to do so."

Beside me, Richie inhaled sharply and I glanced at him.

"Ebon," he whispered, hand going to grip his metal arm. Then he cleared his throat. "That's exactly what Ebon told me before the second big bang. That him having power meant he could, that he was _supposed to_ do whatever he wanted and the same for Virgil."

"You talked with him?" I asked, surprised. When had he found the time to do that? And even more importantly, how had he managed a civil conversation with that lunatic?

Richie nodded, the non-mutated part of his face going kind of green.

"He wasn't wrong," Alva said, still gazing off at something only he could see.

"Is that why you made the gas?" I asked, interrupting Alva's contemplation of the wall behind us. "To create a hero who was compassionate or whatever?"

Alva blinked slowly, pulled his attention back to the present, finished off his drink. "In part. But mostly to get more power out there. I thought if I made powers more prevalent, people would start to take notice. Wake up and realize that it's not power that makes right, but the law. That no one should be above the law, even if they're fighting what the League would call 'evil'." He made finger quotes in the air, then let his arms fall.

The three of us sat in silence, letting Alva's philosophy settle in. How many times had I broken the law in the name of good? Not very many. But it wasn't much of a stretch to see me and Richie doing shady stuff to fund our operation or keep ourselves safe. Maybe that was why Alva had hired us in the first place. He must have known I was gonna keep doing what I'd been doing and that I'd need money and support.

Alva sighed. "But of course the deaths. That was always the drawback. That and the mutations. We're so well trained by society to see difference and deformity as evil. And that prejudice only perpetuates itself."

I found myself nodding. Pops had taught me the same thing, in terms of racism. That there were people who were automatically going to see me as a thug or a gangster just because of my skin. And unless you were extra kind, extra strong and forgiving, that kind of prejudice was what forced you into becoming those things.

"Sorry for that," Alva said, waving at Richie.

Richie flexed his weird hand. "It's Ebon's fault, not yours."

"We were getting closer, you know. The later batches were looking much better. Given another five, ten years..." He raised the cup to his lips and set it down again, realizing it was empty. "Who knows. The changes are genetic. Maybe after a few generations there'll be enough of you to make a difference." He got up, a little wobbly, and poured himself another drink from a bottle in the cabinet. "Even if you find a cure, I want you to keep fighting, got it?" he said as he poured. "You boys are my legacy. No one's going to remember the robots."

Me and Richie left Alva to his drinking not long after that. He was getting sloppy and sentimental and the whole situation was awkward.

"What do you think?" Richie asked me as a cab took us back home. The contractors were finally finished, so we'd said goodbye to the hotel earlier that day.

"I dunno." It was clear Alva believed in the law, believed in it above all else. And yet he'd broken it to further his cause, experimenting on people and hiding his work from the government because he had the money and power to do so. Was he a hypocrite? Or had he only told us about those higher ideals so we could paint him in a more flattering light when we were called to testify against him?

The taxi picked up speed as we left the residential neighborhood and got on the highway headed north. I watched the car dealerships and convenience stores go by, wondering what I was supposed to do next, though I did have one more errand that day.

 **23.3 Hospital Visit**

Pops was awake and reading a newspaper when I got to the hospital. He'd been sleeping the last few times I'd tried to visit, thanks to the drugs and the serious work his body was doing in trying to fix itself. He wasn't ever going to be one hundred percent, but he was out of the woods now.

"Heya, Pops," I said, knocking on the door frame as I entered. He was staying in the nicest hospital room money could buy, paid for by Alva. He had a window looking out at the street, a big TV, his own private bathroom... It was pretty much a hotel where the staff gave you drugs and sometimes stole your blood.

"Virgil! You're here early." He put down the paper and sat up straighter. I went around and sat on the stool next to his bed.

"Yeah, Alva was drunk, so we left early. I still got some questions for him, so we'll probably go back later in the week."

Pops frowned in disapproval. It was directed at Alva though, not me.

"He told us some stuff," I said, shrugging, and told Pops about Alva's philosophies and hypocrisies.

"I'm proud of you, Virgil," Pops said once I'd told him my thoughts on the tech magnate.

I blinked in surprise. "Why?" I'd screwed up so, so bad.

"For being smart."

I frowned, not sure what that had to do with anything. "Richie's the smart one." I'd gotten kinda tired of people telling me I was smart back in the gifted program in elementary school. I didn't feel smart, and for a lot of things, like writing and English, I struggled just as much as most kids in my class. And outside the classroom, a chicken with ADHD would have made better choices than me.

Pops nodded. "Richie's smart too. But this isn't a competition of who can do more mental math. It's about what you _do_ with those smarts. You always think things through, Virgil, and you're not afraid of changing your mind or admitting when you're wrong. That's what's important."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "I guess." I felt uncomfortable. I didn't deserve Pops's praise, not after everything I'd done.

"C'mere." Pops waved me over, pulled me into a hug and all of a sudden I was bawling. I didn't even know why. Angry at myself and at the world, I guess, but also glad Pops was there and he loved me even when he should have hated me forever, and sad for everything that had changed.

 **23.4 Summertime**

A couple days after me and Richie's meeting with Alva, Pops was finally released from the hospital. He still had to go back for PT and check ups every day, but he didn't have to stay there full time anymore. We threw a little party for him—me, Sharon, Richie, some of his friends from work, his PT trainer. It was nice, if a little quiet and awkward.

I daydreamed sometimes about having Richie cook up some gas, some perfect gas that maybe even if it didn't fix his back, it'd at least give him a power like mine. A consolation prize.

But it was just a daydream, not something I wanted to bug Richie about, what with all the stuff he had on his plate already. On top of school, he was getting himself emancipated, working on a cure to the gas, and half a dozen other things besides.

He was staying with us of course—he'd taken over Pops's room, with Pops in the guest room down on the first floor—but somehow I saw less of him now than I ever had. He was always reading or working on something, hardly sleeping. He said his power made it so he didn't need to sleep as much, but he still looked tired all the time, especially after the "lawyer meetings" he had to go to with his dad.

I was busy too. Catching up with school, mostly. Pops had me on a pretty tight leash, and I was actually glad for it. I went straight from home to school and back again, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays when I met with a tutor in the library, and Fridays, when I talked with Dr Lobner. Mostly we talked about school and how I was dealing with Pops and Richie, but we also talked about what Alva had said and done. She gave me some philosophy books to read by some old dead English guys, written back in the days before superpowers and the League, saying it was a good place to start. Kant and Hume I think were the names.

The city held a memorial service outside town hall for the victims of the "bigger bang" and Richie and me went, making a final appearance as Static and Gear. Richie wore his helmet and some gloves to hide what had happened to him, but I ditched most of my costume, carrying my coat on my arm and leaving my face bare. Afterwards we went down to the lake and, kind of as a tribute to Francis, we burned our costumes. It was pretty cathartic, actually.

And so the weeks went by.

Thanks to the tutors and some "Extenuating Circumstances" leeway, I managed to pass all my classes, although honestly I wasn't looking forward to the empty days of summer. I'd been so busy these past few months I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. Daisy was going to China for almost the whole summer, Richie was still fighting a protracted legal battle with his dad and the rest of my friends were starting their summer jobs. Freida at Burger Fool, Omar at the bowling alley.

And meanwhile, lawyers were still hashing out a plea deal with Alva. Richie and me had tried to talk with him again after that one drunken meeting, but the lawyers, upset with what Alva had divulged, banned us from seeing him without their supervision. We were just going to have to wait until the end of the deal before we learned anything new.

Richie and me half talked about doing some investigating on our own, but neither of us could work up the motivation. It was just too daunting, too dangerous and risky.

I wound up volunteering at the center, helping out with basketball camp. I think Pops appreciated that 'cause it made it easier for him to keep an eye on me. I didn't mind though. I was just glad to have something to do where the biggest emergency I had to deal with was when a kid tripped over their own shoes or got hit in the head with a ball.

Alva's plea deal went through at the end of June and he snuck us the data, just like he'd promised.

The insights we got were disturbing.

First off, the original big bang had been allowed to happen because one of Alva's project managers, a man called York, had leaked information about "some good stuff" being stored at the Pier Fourteen warehouse to the Fuhrer's Children.

He'd done this not because he wanted to sabotage Alva, but because Alva had been getting tired of the slow rate of progress. They'd needed more test subjects, and rats wouldn't do. The gas only worked on sentient creatures. People. People Mayor Taggarty had been providing, mainly homeless folks and drug addicts. Those new recruits Ebon had got, right before the bigger bang? Those were the ones that had survived, plus a few Alva had picked up immediately after the original big bang.

Taggarty, York, and the handful of techs, managers and scientists directly related to the project were now all facing trials of their own.

Secondly, and more scientifically, we learned that it wasn't _really_ the gas that caused the powers and mutations. Instead, the gas was more like a vehicle, or rather an immense collection of very small, very fragile vehicles that each carried a tiny doorway into an alternate universe.

Alva had discovered that, when the gas was exposed to a sapient mind, each of the molecules, each of the tiny doorways within a person's body resonated and opened up to some random alternate universe. Then they started swapping matter between the two.

According to Richie, alternate universes meant alternate laws of physics. And since we were now partially made of alternate universe matter, we got to partially defy the normal laws of physics. That was also how we seemingly got energy from nowhere—it was being siphoned or swapped from our own personal alternate dimensions. When someone got exposed, the more gas in and around them meant the more matter got swapped and the bigger the change was.

I wondered if Alva himself had ever gotten exposed, even just a little bit, and wound up with a power like Richie's. It wasn't until after the teleportation dummy contract that Alva Industries started hitting it big.

We were still left with a few other questions of course, like why the gas only bonded with sapient creatures, why its effects didn't eventually wear off, and how we could undo its damage, but we would figure it out. Some day.

####

Maria sent me a letter that July, asking how me and Richie were doing and telling us about her new life in the Justice League. It seemed like she was doing good, though I never got a reply to my reply. I did happen to see an Aquamaria comic a few years later, which was a nice confirmation that she was still around and doing well enough in the League to merit her own merchandise.

One day in late August, only a couple weeks before the new school year, Richie showed up at the center near the end of my volunteer shift. I was on babysitter duty, supervising the kids whose parents were late in picking them up from camp.

"Heya, V," he said, stalking across the court. It was how he always walked when he knew strangers were looking at him. Shoulders hunched, hood up, hands in pockets.

"Yo, Richie! What's up? Wanna play some twenty questions?" I had six or seven kids sitting in a circle on the floor, killing time while we waited for parents.

"Yeah, okay," Richie said, though he didn't look comfortable about it. I was glad he was making the effort at least. Now that his emancipation battle with his dad was over, he didn't leave the house much. Pops probably had a hand in his being here.

It turned out Richie's discomfort was justified however, 'cause before he even sat down one of the little girls asked, "What's wrong with your face?"

Richie flushed, the little lights under his skin blinking red. "Uh," he stammered, but I had experience dealing with this particular girl. She was gullible.

"Jessie, that is racist," I said in my most serious coach voice. "How would you like it if you walked up to a group of robo-americans and they asked you what was wrong with your face?"

"That's not a thing," she scoffed, but I could see the doubt in her eyes.

"Uh, Virg, what?" Richie started to say, but I was getting into the flow of messing with these kids' heads.

"Yeah, what." I got to my feet, put my hands on Richie's shoulders. "Robo-americans have been a vibrant part of American culture for hundreds of years. They came over on the Mayflower to escape tyranny and persecution in England, not get more of the same!"

"They didn't have robots in England back then," Jessie said, but her expression belayed her faith in her own knowledge.

"That is what the white male organic patriarchy wants you to think," I said, lowering my voice as if sharing a huge secret. "After the Mayflower, King Henry the Eighth-"

"King James," Richie corrected.

"Sorry. King _James_ the Eighth decreed that the robo-english were officially banned and they had to go into hiding. Even to this day, the robo-english suffer huge systemic injustices that their American counterparts overthrew in the nineteen-sixties."

Jessie frowned. "Then how come I've never seen a robo-american before?" she said like she'd found the great flaw in my story.

"We're a small minority," Richie said and I nodded vigorously, glad he was playing along.

"Most robo-americans live in California," I said. "In Silicon Valley. You got family over there, right, Rich?"

"On my mom's side, yeah. I don't see them much, 'cause plane tickets are so expensive, you know?"

"For sure," I said, sitting down and motioning for Richie to sit next to me. The kids wanted to ask Richie more questions about "robo-americans" but I managed to steer them back to the game we'd been playing.

The parents all showed up en masse a few minutes later and Richie had to face down a few more awkward stares, but at least they had a little more tact than their kids.

"What was that about?" Richie asked as we went to turn in the attendance sheet at the office. "Robo-americans. You coulda just told her I was a bang baby."

I laughed. "It's kinda this thing me and the other volunteers have been doing. It's a contest to see who can get the kids to believe the most ridiculous thing. And I might have just won."

"That's terrible," Richie said, though his tone and expression said that he thought it was a wonderful and hilarious idea. "You wanna shoot some hoops?"

I grinned, even more sure now that Pops had had a hand in this, and glad that he had. It had been ages since me and Richie had done anything but go over Alva's data. Which, even though it was interesting, it wasn't _fun_.

I got a ball out of the bin and we walked out to the court around the back of the building.

"I gotta warn you bro, I been honing my skills with top athletes like Jessie all summer. You better prepare yourself to get destroyed." I spun the ball on my finger to demonstrate my skills.

Richie smiled. "I dunno, V. It's been a while since we played, maybe you don't remember how bad I used to beat you."

"Yeah, right. You don't even remember the rules. It's not like golf, in this game you _want_ to get points."

We found an unused hoop and played a little one on one. Like I'd thought, Richie was out of practice. He missed his shots, stepped out of bounds, let me take the ball from him. Once we got to five-zero I decided to go easy on him, moving slower, telegraphing what I was gonna do.

And then something changed. His moves got more fluid, all his shots always went in and I never even got an opening. Pretty soon we were five-five, then five-ten. He wasn't even sweating. Assuming he _could_ sweat.

I paused the game, wiping my face on the inside of my t-shirt. "Man, are you cheating?"

"No way. How could I possibly do that?" He spun the ball on one finger, rolled it across his arm and back and caught it spinning in the other hand. He was totally cheating, out thinking me with his power.

Two could play at that game. I went to the edge of the court and pulled off my sweaty shirt, palming a handful of change while I did so. We got back into the game and I dropped some of the change on the ground, the sound of it hidden by our scuffling feet. On Richie's next shot I reached out with the power of magnets, pulling his metal arm down towards a coin trapped under my foot just as he released the ball.

"Hey!" he shouted as I recovered his miss and made a basket of my own. "That's a foul."

"Fine." I chucked the ball at him, something more devious still up my sleeve. It took a few tries, but I eventually managed to get a couple of pennies stuck to the ball. Richie had me blocked off, his defense too good to let me spin and shoot, so instead I hucked the ball straight up. Once it was level with the backboard, the ball made two ninety degree turns, over to the hoop and then down through the net.

Richie groaned and I made a couple more baskets like that, then pulled the ball back to me, spinning it above my finger. Richie grabbed the ball and shoved it into my chest.

"Show off."

I held out my hand. "No powers?"

Richie shook and we went back to the game, though I had to call it quits after a couple rounds, tired after volunteering all day.

I put my shirt back on and we walked over to the park across from the center. Richie picked a bench and we sat, watching the joggers.

"So, you ready for school?" I asked. We both knew he could have gone straight to college if he'd wanted, but for some reason he'd decided to stick with good old Lakeside.

"Not really." He looked down, shuffled his feet, kicking at the gravel under the bench. "I talked with Robert earlier."

"Pops is a talker," I said, confused and kinda worried. Had Richie decided to go to college after all?

"He said I should probably tell you some things."

I frowned a little, no clue what kind of stuff Richie meant. Bang baby stuff? Stuff with his dad? "Okay..."

"First off, I think the gas saved my life."

 _Metaphorically or literally?_ I wondered, but I didn't say anything, waiting for him to pick up momentum.

He took a deep breath, still talking to his knees more than me. "Before the explosion, Ebon got me. Told me about his whole bang baby supremacy thing and forced me to 'prove myself' to him."

"So what'd you do? Sic Backpack on him?"

Richie shook his head. "He tore up all my gear before that, when we were on the roof with Alva." He grimaced. "There's not a whole lot I can do with my power, not obvious stuff like you or Maria. But I can mess with stuff inside my head, right? Like relive something I did earlier or block out stimuli."

I could see why he hadn't bothered to tell me about that last part of his power. Being able to turn yourself blind? Why would anyone want to do that? It was worse than pointless.

"So I told him I can block out pain. Then he got this saw and told me if I screamed he'd kill me. And then..." Richie made a buzzing sound through his teeth and made a swiping motion at his metal arm.

"Oh, God," I whispered, unable to contain myself.

"I probably woulda bled out if I hadn't got mutated."

"Dang," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "That's terrible." Terrible wasn't even a terrible enough word.

"Yeah," Richie said. "It's one of those things, you know? Where _I'm_ okay with it, but the rest of the world is just kinda sucky."

I nodded, knowing the feeling, though probably not to the same degree Richie did.

"So, that's thing one."

I made a noise to show I was listening, wondering how many things there were.

"Thing two is Madelyn."

This thing wasn't entirely unexpected. He'd acted really weird after the whole Madelyn debacle and there had been some gaps in his story—how and when he and Madelyn had become "friends" mainly.

"She was a bang baby too," Richie said, and somehow I wasn't surprised. "A mind reader, I guess, though she really couldn't control it. So when she tried to take over my mind, we got, like, mixed."

"Like a Vulcan mind-meld?" I asked.

Richie cracked a smile. "Yeah." The smile faded. "Only scarier 'cause we kinda almost brainwashed the entire school into becoming our zombie puppets. Well, not kinda almost. We did, for about an hour, but only to figure out how to get rid of Madelyn's power. Sorry about that."

My stomach twisted a little and I wished Richie had left out that detail. It was disturbing, even if it had only been a one time thing they did in an attempt to cure Madelyn and no one remembered it. "But it didn't work. That's why she's in a coma?"

Richie shook his head. "No, it worked and we knew what was gonna happen. She was in a lot of pain, V. She agreed to it, but it's taking me way longer to wake her up than we expected."

"We've kinda had other stuff to worry about," I reminded him.

"I know. And medicine is one of those things where the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know."

"What if we cheated?" I suggested. "See if that girl Miranda couldn't pick something up. Heck, I bet I could. I'm pretty much a human MRI machine." I made a humming noise like I imagined an MRI would make.

"Or give her more gas," Richie said in a quiet voice.

I didn't say anything. We both knew how risky that would be—it was a hundred times more likely to kill her or turn her into a mutant than it was to fix her. At least it would be if she wasn't already a bang baby. Alva's files didn't include double exposure victims like Richie and the only data points we had for that set were him, Francis and Ebon.

I watched the joggers for a minute while Richie watched the gravel at his feet.

"So, that was two," I said. "Any more things?"

"I... got some new powers."

"Oh yeah?" For some reason I assumed he hadn't, that he'd only got the mutation this time around.

"It's nothing cool. I can feel it when you do your EMP thing, which is like all the time."

I blinked, suddenly aware I'd been reaching out with my electro-sense ever since our pickup game, and probably even before then. I stopped and it was kind of like stepping into a dark room, not fully aware of what was around me. The park seemed a lot calmer without it.

"You can keep it up. I'da mentioned it earlier if it bugged me."

I just shrugged, self-conscious now. "Anything else?"

"I know stuff just looking at things. Like what something's made of or what its temperature is. Which is kinda neat, but mostly pointless and annoying. Like I don't care what the chemical composition of this bench is or how warm the dirt is or whatever, so I try to keep it turned off.

"I guess that's it except for this." He spread out the fingers of his metal hand, letting the individual wires come apart, then snapping back together. "Which, again, is pretty pointless unless I'm like raking leaves or something."

"Don't forget glowing in the dark."

Richie snorted. "That's not new. I was white even before I got mutated."

"Ha. Ha." I fake laughed at his terrible joke. "Can you control it?"

"Huh. Yeah," he said like he had just realized it himself. He stared off into space and the little lights under his skin flicked through all the colors of the rainbow, the lights bleeding into his skin, following a circuit board-like pattern. He blinked, shuddered and the lights dimmed, went back to orange. "Well, that felt weird."

"Weird how?" I asked, curious.

"I dunno, just weird. But hey, at least now I know I don't always have to buy clothes that go with orange."

"And you can be a traffic light for Halloween."

"Only if you go as an MRI machine."

"Deal." I stuck out my hand and Richie shook it. "You ready to head home?"

"Uh," Richie said and I leaned back against the bench, puzzled as to what other secrets Richie might be hiding. Was it something to do with his family? Or was it another bang baby thing? Maybe he'd figured out something important from Alva's files.

"Another thing?"

Richie rubbed at his scalp, nodding, grimacing. "So, we're friends, right?"

At the last second I decided this was not the time for sarcasm. "Yeah."

"And, like, stuff changes. You grow up and learn things about yourself."

"Hopefully."

"But you're still the same basic person, only more... complex, I guess, 'cause you've got all these internal and external forces working upon and shaping that basic core." He paused, staring off at the patch of grass on the other side of the gravel path. "A lot of stuff's happened in the past seven months, a lot of really crazy stuff that kinda feels like it shouldn't even be real. The kind of stuff you read about in the news and you have to figure they were exaggerating to make things more exciting.

"But then I look in the mirror and it's like, yeah, all that was real and it's part of who I am and I can't, I don't want to hide it. Even if the guy at the kiosk overcharges me for gum. The world's sucky."

"Yeah, it is."

"But you can't really blame people, can you? Somebody comes along and violates their perception of normal and it's scary."

"'Cause we're powerful," I said.

Richie gave me a sidelong glance. "Maybe. But that's not really what I was getting at. What I mean is that I decided I'm not gonna care. Hiding and lying isn't healthy and if the world wants to be sucky to me, then fine. Whatever. I don't care. I'll just deal with it until it stops being sucky."

"You got that straight," I said, offering my fist to bump. That was why he'd came down to the center even though-

"Gay," Richie said, interrupting my train of thought.

"What?" I don't think I'd processed what I'd heard.

"I'm gay. Not straight. So I don't got that straight, I got it gay." He blushed. "Oh, jeez. Sorry, it was too perfect."

I let my fist fall to my lap, stunned. "Oh." I let it sink in, the clues in his speech. "Okay," I said, not sure what else to say. For some inexplicable reason I felt sick, violated. All those times we'd changed in the locker room, every hug, every jostle on the court, had he been _into_ that? Had our friendship been a lie, with him wanting to be more than friends the whole time?

"V, wait."

I blinked, realizing I had tensed, about ready to get up off the bench and start running.

"Think for a sec. We've been friends since we were little kids. Nothing's changed, you're like my brother."

I relaxed, forced myself to relax, to think. Did this change things? It was just like what he'd said a second ago, about violating someone's perceptions of normal. He'd challenged my perceptions and how had I reacted? Like I was scared.

But did I have the right to react like that? A little maybe. I _was_ scared, but why? Because I didn't want our friendship to change. Even if that was impossible. Things changed over time, it would be weird if they didn't. I'd be lying to myself, ignoring reality if I tried to pretend like our friendship was going to be the same now as it had been five minutes ago. But how it changed was somehow up to me. Richie had told me this thing, trusted me to deal with it and act accordingly.

"So," I said, not entirely sure how to express the conclusion I'd come to. "That's a thing. Or four things, I guess. Dang. I know you've been busy, but bro, you gotta keep me in the loop." I got up, offered him a hand and pulled him up as well. "Seriously. We've been living in the same house for like the whole summer. You got no excuses."

Richie gasped like he'd forgotten he was supposed to breathe and nodded. He wiped at his eye with his sleeve and jammed his hands in his pockets. I punched him in the shoulder.

"Jeez. Chill out."

Richie let out a choked laugh and I rolled my eyes, started walking for the bus stop, Richie on my heels. "What? You gotta have realized I wouldn't care, at least about the last thing. I thought you were supposed to be some kind of super-genius."

"I'm good at math. Not telling the future."

I just shrugged. Now that I'd got over the initial shock, my mind started filling up with questions. Did he have any crushes? Any dates or first kisses? Was that why he was such a fan of action comics, full of muscled dudes with their shirts off?

Fortunately I thought before opening my mouth. Richie didn't need those kinds of questions right now. He needed a friend who didn't care as much as he did, someone who actively made the world less sucky. In general, he needed some fun.

"So," I said, leaning against the bus stop shelter. "Daisy's supposed to get back next week. You wanna call up Omar and Frieda and have a party?"

I half expected him to moan and groan—parties weren't really his thing—but to my surprise he nodded.

"Yeah, okay. Actually, I just found this band I think she'd like. You heard of the Gorillaz?"

The bus rolled up and we got on. The driver openly stared at Richie, but I don't think he even noticed, talking about the band and party plans.

We found seats towards the back, across from a man with snake-like skin and enormous yellow eyes. I nodded at him, still listening to Richie talk. So, maybe things were weird and different and scary, but it was up to me whether I freaked out about it or not.

Heck, _I_ was weird, I just hid it better. I turned my electro-sense back on, eliciting a twitch from Richie, and suddenly the world was a bigger, noisier, more interesting place.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Bilingual Bonus: " _Sí, lo haré," dice María. Ya no tiene porque quedarse en Dakota. Agarra la pluma y firma el papel que se la han dado. = "_ Yes, I'll do it," Maria says. She doesn't have any reason to stay in Dakota anymore. She grips the pen and signs the paper she has been given.

Well, that's the end. I probably could have put more foreshadowing for the whole Richie-being-gay thing, but it's too late now!

I'll probably post an epilogue to tie up any loose ends sometime in the next few days, as well as a few short outside-the-main-story scenes, so check my profile for that!

I hope you've enjoyed reading this half as much as I enjoyed writing it. This whole experience has been a blast.

Thanks for reading!


	24. Epilogue: Waking Up

**24 Epilogue: Waking up**

Frieda lay on the couch, sweaty and smelling like french fries and wondering why she had thought working at Burger Fool was a good idea. Then she pulled the check out of her purse and remembered why. Pretty soon she would have a cell phone of her very own.

The home phone rang, but Frieda ignored it, trying to calculate just how many more hours she needed to work before she could afford her reward.

"Frieda, phone!" her mom yelled and instantly the thoughts of numbers and tiredness evaporated from her mind.

"I'm getting it!" she called as she dashed up to her room. She dove onto her bed, purse and jester hat flying. "Hello?"

"Heya, Frieda," her caller said. Frieda's heart did a flip-flop. It was Richie. Ever since the... _accident_ , he'd dropped off the face of the planet. She hadn't seen him since before summer vacation, hadn't even been able to drag any information out of Virgil about how their mutual friend was doing beyond 'fine.'

"Oh my God, Richie! Where are you? Are you okay? I mean, how are you? What're you doing?"

"Home, yes, fine, and planning some stuff," he said in a way that made Frieda wonder if he really _had_ turned into a robot.

"Science stuff?"

"Nah, social stuff. V's trying to put together this welcome home party for Daisy, so I'ma pass you to him in a little bit, but I got this other thing I was wondering if you could help me with?"

Frieda blinked. Richie was a _genius_ now. What could he need help with? "Yeah, sure!"

"Well... do you know Madelyn Spaulding's friends?"

"Yeah, I know them!" Frieda said instantly. "Me and Christine went to Kindergarten together, and I know Abby from journalism class..." She shrugged. She knew all the kids in their grade one way or another. "Why?"

"I wanted to make something for her, like a get well card."

Freida smiled. Of course she would help with something like that. Even if Madelyn was in a coma and wouldn't ever see it.

####

Madelyn opened her eyes. Orange lights blinked above her among splotches of blurry color. She squinted, trying to make sense of what she saw, of the meaningless noise coming into her ears. It was all chaos, nonsensical, frustrating.

She blinked and blinked again, and slowly the world resolved itself, became clear and intelligible.

She was laying in bed in a white room, hooked up to beeping machines. Three people stood above her, talking in quiet, anxious voices. Madelyn smiled, recognizing them.

"Mom?" she croaked, her voice barely a whisper. "Dad?"

Her parents cried and hugged her for a long time, just a little too hard. Madelyn didn't mind though, happy that they were happy to see her after everything she'd done to them. Eventually they let go, wiping away tears and smiling.

"Welcome back," the third person said. Madelyn squinted at him. He was a bang baby, or maybe a cyborg, half his face replaced with dull gray metal and one eye glowing orange. More orange lights were set into his metal skin, like the little lights on the computer keyboards at school. But he had blond hair and glasses and a square jaw that looked familiar. More than that, when she pushed just a little bit with her mind, his thoughts felt like the thoughts of only one person she knew.

Madelyn's hand twitched as she tried to raise it to her mouth in shock, but she just didn't have the strength.

"Richie?" she gasped. Had he done this to himself, or had he been transformed at the hands of some villain?

"Heya, Maddie," he said, a big dopey grin pasted on his mutilated face. "One year, ten months, sixteen days, five hours and three minutes. A little above my original estimate, but some stuff came up, sorry."

"How?" Madelyn whispered and Richie seemed to intuit what her real question was.

"This?" He gestured at his face with a metal hand. "There was an altercation at the gas storage facility. And you know me, I had to go get myself involved the second I thought I could help."

A gentle wave of foreign emotions washed over her. An odd mix of sympathy and horror from her parents directed at Richie, almost entirely blotted out by their overwhelming joy at having their daughter back. And from Richie... If emotions had color, he would have been leaking rainbows. He was happy she was back, proud that he'd been able to fix her, embarrassed it had taken so long, angry about the incident that had left him mutated, sad and jealous over... something.

Madelyn couldn't really determine the causes of the emotions she was picking up, only make guesses based on what she knew. But there was so much she didn't know. She had missed so much. Almost two years? Richie and all her friends would be seniors in high school now, ready to graduate and go on to college and the real world, while she'd lain in bed like a lump, doing nothing but relive her old memories and the ones Richie had accidentally left her.

Tears filled her eyes, making everything blurry again, as weak, hiccuping sobs escaped her.

Her parents' worry blasted through her and in an instant she found herself wrapped again in her mom's arms, her dad petting her hair. She was glad for their comfort, but it wasn't what she truly needed. She _had_ to know what had happened, what she had missed, what had changed, what Richie had done to bring her back.

But she was so weak, so trembling and tired she didn't have the strength to make her mouth form the words and unlike before, there was something blocking her from pushing her thoughts and will into someone else's mind. She cried some more, thankful for that, yet frustrated she couldn't communicate what she wanted.

####

"I hired a meta to do telepathic surgery on you," Richie explained. It had been about a day since Madelyn had woken up, a long and frightening day of finding out just what two years of a coma had done to her body and all the work she was going to have to do just to learn how to walk again. Right now she was sitting in bed in the hospital, propped up against a mountain of pillows, her chest aching as her muscles regained the strength needed for her to breathe on her own.

"How?"

"Well, you remember that guy Copycat?"

Madelyn nodded.

"I had him give you some of my power. It's probably worn off by now, but I think you got enough of it to subconsciously fix what I did, and make it easier for you to parse any extra information you might be picking up _and_ avoid the overload that caused the migraines. Which really should have been a natural sub-power that somehow never manifested..."

Richie's mismatched eyes slid out of focus for a second and Madelyn felt his thoughts rearrange themselves, like a deck of cards getting shuffled. While he did that Madelyn tried to think about what was going on in her own head. She remembered what it felt like to have Richie's power, but that wasn't what she felt like now. She didn't feel all split up into little pieces, she felt... fine. Better and more put together, more under control than she had in a long time.

Richie blinked and went on with his explaining, interrupting her thoughts. "I also took the liberty of designing an alpha-wave sink and planting it in your head." He tapped a spot behind his own ear. "That was Virgil's idea, actually."

Madelyn tried to ask what an _alpha-wave sink_ was, but the sound just wouldn't come out. But Richie figured out what she meant.

"It means you can't overwrite other people's brain waves. Same kind of idea as the zap caps I made for V. It's a way to ground your brain waves so you don't hurt anybody accidentally."

Madelyn nodded minutely, remembering Richie's design plans for the 'zap caps'. "Thanks." She really meant it too. She didn't want to turn other people into puppets, but if the possibility was there... Who knew what might happen?

Richie smiled. "'Course. Now I'm guessing you want me to get you all caught up?"

Madelyn nodded and Richie opened up the laptop he'd brought with him so he could show her a video. The opening scene showed their whole grade, cheering and waving, holding up a butcher paper banner that read _Get Well Soon!_ in purple paint. Then a cut to black with the date 8/22/01, followed by a shot of Richie pointing the camera at himself, already mutated so soon after the start of her coma.

"Hey, Madelyn! Sorry I didn't start this sooner, everything's been crazy lately, as you can see." He glared at the camera with his glowing eye. "But I'm working hard on medicine stuff now, and I thought that when you wake up, you're gonna want to know everything that's happened. So, I'm making this video. Anyway, here's Abby!" He turned the camera around to show Madelyn's best friend, looking awkward and uncomfortable. "Abby, where'd you go this summer?"

Abby smiled at the question. "I went to Yellowstone with my parents and Johnny and Max. I had no idea it was gonna be so stinky and gross. We saw the geysers and deer and this huge waterfall and my dad bought me this!" A stuffed toy bison filled the shot, huge and out of focus.

A new date filled the screen and her friend Christine came on to talk about her summer. One by one her friends and family filled her in about their summers, told her to get well soon. Each scene was only a few seconds long, preceded by a date. Slice-of-life scenes were mixed in between the mini interviews, showing things like Richie fixing her parents' car, Abby giving her candidacy speech at ASB elections, Mrs Brady talking about To Kill A Mockingbird, Richie's friend Virgil in his pajamas eating cereal and yelling at Richie for filming him without warning. It seemed like hardly a day went by when Richie hadn't taken the time to video something, something funny or sweet or everyday.

The last scene showed her parents in the hospital, dated only a couple days ago, promising that they would see her soon.

Richie handed her a kleenex and she managed to raise it to her face, blow her nose.


End file.
